All language subtitles for Vanishing.Of.The.Bees.2009.720p.BluRay

From the dawn of

civilization, the honeybee has

symbolized hard work, unity, and

cooperation.

These furry insects live in

colonies where every bee works

for the good of the whole.

At the heart of a colony of

thousands, there is but one

queen.

While she lays eggs, her

daughters, the worker bees, run

the hive, taking on different

roles during their life span.

Nurse bees care for the queen

and baby bees.

Guard bees protect the hive from

invaders, and forage bees

venture out from the hive to

gather food and water to share

with their colony.

Honeybees from one hive can

visit more than 100,000 flowers

in a single day.

Finding a flower in bloom, a

honeybee collects pollen for

food and nectar to make honey.

The sweet nectar and nourishing

pollen are her reward for

carrying out one of the most

important tasks in nature...

Pollination.

Pollination is primarily

dependent upon either of two

factors... insects or the wind.

The bee's body picks up pollen

grains as it brushes against the

anthers in a flower.

When the bee alights on another

flower, the pollen adhering to

its body rubs off onto the

stigma of that flower.

The success of the flower

depends upon that moment of

fertilization.

Inside, the part that remains is

the single cell that was formed

by fertilization.

It begins to grow until there

are many cells, which take shape

into a seed, a seed within a

fruit.

A lot of the people out there

don't realize that one out of

every three bites of food they

stick in their mouth, these

honeybees put on their dinner

table.

And if they're not here...

We wouldn't have our fruits.

We wouldn't have our vegetables.

If we want a diet that is more

than gruel, more than wheat,

oats, corn, and rice, we need

honeybees.

But also, even the individual

bee is just fascinating.

It has been designed to do what

it does, which is go out and

collect pollen and honey and

bring it back.

So it's got all this hair.

It builds up a static

electricity when it's flying, so

when it's in the flower, the

pollen jumps on it.

It's got special notches on its

front legs to clean its

antennae.

Its antennae can smell.

It can tell the temperature.

It can measure oxygen and

carbon dioxide.

And it's an amazing, amazing

thing.

This might be one of the most

interesting, disturbing, and

puzzling stories to come along

in a long time.

Something is happening to the

honeybees.

Over 10 million bees have

mysteriously disappeared in

Taiwan recently, and beekeepers

are having a tough time making

money.

Something is killing our

honeybees in staggering numbers.

The first beekeeper in the.

United States to bring these

mysterious disappearances to

light was David hackenberg.

Hackenberg owns and manages

around 3,000 beehives and works

with his son, Davey.

Together, they bring bees to

apple orchards, almond groves,

pumpkin patches, and blueberry

fields across the country.

Hey, we'll see you in a

little bit, boys.

You know, I started keeping

bees in 1962 as a high-school...

Project.

You know, I was born and raised

on a dairy farm, and was raising

veal calves, and we liked honey,

so I got a hive of bees in 1962.

In the spring of 1962, I got

this hive of bees, you know.

And my mother said, "that'll go

away quick.

You get stung once or twice,"

you know.

But it didn't, and by the time I

got out of high school, I had a

couple hundred hives.

And we joke about getting stung.

You know, you get stung, and you

become a beekeeper.

Hey.

You got a pallet, or what?

I got honey.

I got a box full of honey.

I got...

What we're doing is we're

going through these bees and

getting them ready to go to

California.

We got to get them all in clean

pallets.

We're making sure they're all

good-looking beehives.

About two trailers... about 800

and some, hopefully.

We were hoping to send three

loads, but...

We just keep losing them.

In October 2006,

Dave hackenberg discovered

massive honeybee losses and

announced them to the world.

The discovery thrust him into

the spotlight and created quite

a buzz.

Let me introduce

Dave hackenberg.

This is really the gentleman

that raised the red flags.

He made enough noise to get

people's attention, and we thank

him for that.

Thank you.

Where are the bees going, you

know?

Why?

Well, on November 12, 2006, at

4:00 in the afternoon, we rolled

into the yard of bees in south

of tampa, Florida, at ruskin,

Florida, to pick up 400 hives of

bees, and they were empty.

There was no bees in the boxes.

They were... you know, 36 of

them still had anything from a

handful to a good-looking

beehive.

But for the most part, most of

them...

And three weeks before that,

they were good beehives.

And that all became news in

early February of 2007, when it

hit the Philadelphia inquirer.

The next day, I was in 487

newspapers around the world.

Some of the nation's top

scientists are trying to

understand the phenomenon.

But no one is more immersed in

the mystery than the man who is

widely credited with discovering

it.

The bees were all gone.

They're gone.

I mean, where'd they go?

Don't know.

I mean, I literally got down and

crawled around... I mean,

seriously, I got down on my

hands and knees and crawled

around, and there's no dead

bees.

There are no dead bees anywhere.

I mean, you can't find any bees.

They flew off some place.

And never came back.

Never came home.

I've known David hackenberg

for... I don't know... 20-plus

years.

We're both east-coast

beekeepers.

We go to some of the same farms

in Maine.

I've known Dave and his

brother Eli since they were

kids.

I met them on the road.

They were trucking bees north.

There's been times when I've

needed help, and I've called on

him, and the same thing... there

was times when he's needed help.

We call each other, and, you

know, we call it therapy.

We call each other

a couple times a day.

It's almost therapy for us to

talk back and forth, because

it's difficult.

Your bees are dying, and, you

know, a lot of people think it's

your fault.

You know, he's always been a

good friend, but when his bees

just really fell apart, I

started calling him on a daily

basis.

I joke about that it's just to

keep him off of suicide watch,

but in some ways, that's not a

joke.

Scientist

Dennis Van engelsdorp monitors

bee health in the state of

Pennsylvania.

When hackenberg reported the

inexplicable losses,

Van engelsdorp was one of the

first called to the scene.

The rest of the formic... we

didn't use it all.

Oh, okay.

We only used six.

David hackenberg started very

loudly complaining about this

condition in November.

And we required a

David hackenberg, because now

it's pretty clear that some

other people have been suffering

this condition.

And he was right.

Reports of catastrophic

honeybee losses arrived from

beekeepers across the.

United States, as well as

Taiwan, Argentina, China,

France, Italy, and many other

countries.

All around the planet, bees were

disappearing, and no one knew

why.

In early 2007, U.S. scientists

formed a task force to study the

vanishing bees.

They identified the distinct

symptoms and named the

phenomenon colony collapse

disorder.

The symptoms of colony

collapse are the fact that when

a colony is completely dead,

you're finding no bees in the

colony or in the apiary.

You're also not finding any of

these known pathogens, like

varroa mite or honeybee tracheal

mite, that would explain the

loss.

And if there are bees left in

the colony, you only find a

handful of very young bees and

the queen.

And we know that it was a rapid

loss, because often you'll find

lots of young bees or baby bees

in a colony.

And you'd never expect bees to

leave their young behind.

So, we see lots of young bees,

but we don't find dead bees in

the colony, and we don't find

dead bees in the apiary.

They've flown away.

So, this apiary is a collection

of colonies that we brought here

two months ago, and they were

colonies that we suspected had

ccd.

So, this is an example where we

only have a couple frames of

bees and no other bees in there.

This is a colony at the end

stages of collapse.

The queen isn't leaving, and...

Well, she may be sick, but she's

not dying.

Like, I mean, we're not

seeing...

Some of the last bees we see are

the...

Here's the queen here.

And you can see that's a nice

patch of brood.

She's really trying, and you can

see eggs right up and to the

outside.

So, she's trying very hard to

build that population, but the

bees are dying faster than they

can be replaced.

Now, two colonies, in fact, have

died, and we're actually

monitoring what's happening with

them.

This looks awful, but in

reality, I would've expected

there to be much more

significant damage.

We actually opened one hive this

morning to grade it, and we came

back in the afternoon, and it

had all gone away.

3,000 bees... gone.

Well, here's a beehive these

bee scientists found a couple

days ago.

It was full of bees.

Three hours later... Nobody home.

They just... Took off.

Beehives have been

transported by man to pollinate

crops since the early days of

Egypt.

Ancient Egyptians floated hives

on rafts down the nile to follow

the bloom.

Today, honeybees are transported

on semi trucks and pollinate

$15 billion worth of food

annually in the U.S. alone.

Commercial beekeepers like

Dave Mendes don't make the

majority of their income from

honey... rather, from

pollination contracts from

farmers who rely on the

beekeeping industry to produce

fruits and vegetables.

If you hit hot weather,

you're gonna need to water the

bee in the evening.

If you hit cool weather, then...

Don't.

Right.

Below 50 degrees, it's not good

for them.

But if you ended up going across

10... not that you will, but...

And you hit hot weather, at the

end of the day, just think, if

you're thirsty, so are the bees.

If they got loaded on the

truck last night, they left

fort Myers yesterday evening.

It's probably gonna be about

four days of traveling.

Those hives will land in

lost hills, California on an

almond orchard there.

They will stay there

approximately till the middle of

march, and then they'll come

back.

So, they will come somewhere

back to Babcock ranch.

Middle of may, we'll ship them

up to Maine for blueberry

pollination.

They'll go almost to the

Canadian border... Washington

county.

From there, they'll go on a

truck, and they'll go to

Massachusetts for Cranberries.

As soon as they're done with

Cranberries, they'll come back

to Florida, and good chance

they're going to go back on the

ranch.

When media people ask me about

what's going on with the bees,

they always ask, "well, gosh, is

there gonna be enough bees for

pollination?"

What I try to emphasize is that

that's part of the reason for

worrying, but more than that is

that bees are an indicator of

environmental quality.

When the bees are dying,

something's wrong.

And that's gonna affect all of

us.

We... I've gone to several state

conventions with my good friend

Dave hackenberg.

Dave asked

me, you know, "what are we gonna

do?"

"How are we gonna stop this?"

We're supposed to figure this

out.

I don't know!

Excuse me.

I think this is beyond us.

Well, these are all dead

hives that we've had in.

They're just sorting through

equipment.

And this is agonizing for these

guys, 'cause they know this is

their livelihood, too.

This is just one of our

buildings that we have full of

dead equipment.

I've been in commercial

beekeeping for... I'm the fifth

generation in beekeeping.

We've run into problems through

the years, but this is a problem

that we've never, ever seen

before to this degree.

Since Thanksgiving... we're here

the second week of February...

Since Thanksgiving day, we've

virtually lost the operation to

the bees just dying.

I really don't know what we're

gonna do.

You know, we have some options

that we're exploring, but we

don't know.

Going out of business,

Rick Smith bid a somber farewell

to the family honeybee

operation.

Pretty devastating, and it's

very painful.

The solution is now beyond me.

People have had a long

association with honeybees.

And part of that association is

because in the old world, where

bees were and people were,

nothing is sweet.

They don't have sugar cane.

The only thing that's sweet is

fruit.

So you can imagine if you taste

honey, and you've never had

sugar before, it's the nectar of

the gods.

This is quite an amazing thing.

Honey was magical.

It was medicinal.

It was by far the oldest

medicine.

In ancient Egypt, it was used as

a panacea for pretty much any

sort of complaint that the human

body might suffer from.

The same in ancient Greece and

Rome.

In the ancient world, bees

were thought to be prophetic.

The behavior of bees and swarms

was seen as omens.

If bee swarms would settle on

houses or temples, that was

thought to be some kind of

message or be some kind of a

blessing.

The bee clearly represents the

female aspect of the divine in

the fact that the queen is the

centerpiece of the bee culture.

And in antiquity and greco-Roman

antiquity, the queen and the

bees were associated with what

I'm calling the sacred feminine

or just plainly the goddess.

Bees are a female society.

All the worker bees are female

and make up 95% of the

population.

They gather honey, build comb,

protect the hive, and raise the

young.

The drones, male bees, serve

only to mate with the queen.

If these honey-producing

matriarchies were prophetic in

ancient times, what message do

they hold for us today?

The bees are saying we need

to open our consciousness again

to the idea that there is both

masculine aspect of deity and

feminine aspect of deity.

And these two have to come into

balance again, honoring the body

of the earth as mother.

Honey-hunting has been an

integral part of human culture

since the paleolithic age.

Rock paintings from South Africa

to Spain depict tribesmen

climbing trees surrounded by

clouds of bees, or using a

smoker to calm bees in their

quest for liquid gold.

To this day, honey gatherers

venture into the dense

rainforests of Malaysia, where

they scale the tualang tree, the

tallest tree in Asia.

There, the giant bee,

Apis dorsata, build their

hives.

In preparation for a honey hunt,

Pak teh fashions a smoker from

strips of Reed.

The 84-year-old leads the honey

hunts with his sons and

grandsons, passing on this

ancient tradition.

[ Shouting in native

[ language ]

Cases of colony collapse

disorder, or ccd, were

documented in 35 states.

Scientists across the country

combined forces, employing

CSI-style tactics to find the

cause.

From Florida to California,

scientists took samples of bees,

wax, and pollen, then shipped

them back to the lab for

analysis.

One challenge was that there

were no dead bees left behind by

ccd.

Even so, their research

unearthed a whole new set of

questions.

I was surprised when I

started looking at how little I

knew and how little there was to

look at to figure out what was

going on.

There was some work done in the

'30s and the '50s.

But right now, when I would

dissect bees, I would dissect

for a known thing.

"Okay, I'm looking for honeybee

tracheal mites.

This is how you do it."

When we did some of the initial

survey work with penn state, we

found, in fact, that these bees

had just sort of every sort of

pathogen or disease possible.

And that leads us to believe

that there's some immune

compromise going on.

So something is making them

susceptible to everything.

A number of suspects were

investigated, including the

verroa mite.

These parasites feed on the

bees' blood, transmit viruses,

and lay eggs in the same cells

as the baby bees.

Another suspect was the fungal

bacteria nosema ceranae, which

makes it difficult for the bees

to eat, leaving them too weak to

forage.

Also standing accused was the

newly discovered Israeli acute

paralysis virus, which was found

in a large number of ccd hives.

However, after extensive

research, scientists concluded

that though all three suspects

were hurting the honeybees, none

were the primary cause of colony

collapse disorder.

During their research,

scientists uncovered many other

theories, as well, some worth

investigating... some not.

So, I have heard everything,

from the rapture to it being a

Russian conspiracy, and the

Russians have put genes in the

bees and now are beaming

satellite beams down to kill the

bees.

And as a scientist, I can't say

that it's not true, but it

doesn't seem very likely.

Cellphones was one that, for

some reason, really caught on.

It was a misrepresentation of a

German paper, and the guy who

did it, you know, is saying,

"no, I didn't mean to make this

linkage."

But that continues to persist.

We don't think that's the cause,

although we don't recommend

beekeepers give cellphones to

their bees, because they're

social insects and will likely

bankrupt you because they'll

call so much, and they'll only

pollinate blackberries.

What has happened is beekeepers

have become very good at

replacing dead hives.

An average beekeeper's gonna

tell you he loses 30% of his

hives a year.

If a cow farmer or a corn grower

or an apple producer lost 30% of

their crop every year, they'd be

going... like, they called in

the national guard when cows

were starving in Montana.

But beekeepers... all they have

to do is they split their colony

in half.

They put another queen in, and

they can fill in these holes

very good.

And in a way, they've become

their worst nightmare, because

every time they have these

collapses, they're able to fill

the gap.

Despite this quick-fix

solution of splitting hives,

beekeepers still came up short.

In the last few years, there

have not been enough American

bees to pollinate the almond

crop.

And the almond growers went to

the government, to the usda, and

said, "we need more bees.

Can we import them from other

countries?"

And so, three years ago, I

believe it was, permission was

granted to bring in bees from

Australia.

And bees began arriving by 747,

landing at sfo airport, and

getting trucked to the central

valley.

And then very confused bees, you

know, coming from the other side

of the world... the precise

opposite season... got to work

pollinating the almonds.

Bees are now being shipped

across oceans to deal with the

shortage, an action in itself

unsustainable.

And still, American scientists

have failed to isolate the cause

of the vanishing bees.

Smoke.

Well, no.

These we targeted because they

looked like they had ccd.

And, so, we have some sort of

shot-in-the-dark ideas.

So, you're trying to restore

them, or trying to...

Yeah.

Yeah... to see if we can get

them to bounce back and not die.

'Cause we would've expected all

these colonies to be dead within

a couple weeks.

Oh, okay.

So... well, like, this one's

gonna be dead in a couple weeks.

Like, we're trying to see if

there's a way, you know, of

dealing with collapsing

colonies.

Like, I mean, it's not like we

hold much hope for any of this,

but...

Majority of the cases, those

colonies that collapse from ccd

did not have an immediate

problem with verroa mites or

nosema disease.

So I think we've ruled a bunch

of stuff out, and we're honing

in on a couple of remaining

factors.

Holistic beekeepers take an

opposite approach to keeping

bees than the large, migratory

operations.

Having far fewer hives and not

trucking them for pollination

are just a few of the contrasts

in their practice.

Equally stung with a love of

bees, these men and women

recognize a different set of

suspects to explain the puzzling

bee disappearances.

In central western Illinois,

we are starting a biodynamic

farm, and in the heart of the

farm is a honeybee sanctuary, a

sanctuary where the honeybee can

be treated in a way that she's

not exploited or looked at only

as something to profit from.

We consciously came here... I

chose the site here in Illinois

because we are in the heartland,

and that's where the greatest

damages are.

We are surrounded by monsanto

corn and by monsanto soy.

Those are the main crops.

People in Iowa and in Illinois

here can't drink their own well

water anymore because it's so

poisonous.

I wouldn't be doing the work

that I'm doing if I wouldn't

have hope that we can turn

things around, bit by bit.

We want to make salves and

ointments and healing products

from what the bees give us...

The wax and the propolis and the

honey.

And, of course, then teach how

to take care of bees in a

different way so we can build up

the immune system, build up

their innate strength.

One common practice guenther

feels compromises the health and

vitality of honeybees is the way

commercial beekeepers treat the

queen bee.

While worker bees and drones

live only a few weeks or months,

a queen bee can live up to five

years.

She is the mother of every bee

in her hive.

Commercial beekeepers routinely

kill the queen after only a few

months and replace her with a

younger, artificially raised

one.

Beekeepers remove the queen from

the hive, pinch her head, and

then introduce a surrogate in a

cage.

The cage prevents the colony

from killing the foreign queen

until they adapt to her scent.

And the way of

queen-breeding... this

mechanized, artificial way of

queen breeding... is the gist of

the attack on the honeybee.

Another practice holistic

beekeepers feel is undermining

the health of honeybees is

artificial insemination.

The queen bee is knocked out

with carbon dioxide and knocked

up with semen collected from

male drones.

They do this to select for

specific traits, but critics

feel it narrows the gene pool.

I'm just opening the vaginal

chamber of the queen.

So, I grab the forceps, and if I

pull the sting over, it's a

little flap of tissue that you

have to get around so you're

putting semen directly in the

oviduct.

And then you measure out... you

know, you measure out so much

semen.

You measure out 8 microliters.

Give her the equivalent of 8-10

drones.

And then you just back that out

and release the queen.

And she's ready to be put in her

mating nook.

She looks a little rough, but

she'll come around in a few

minutes.

Another industrialized

beekeeping method under

suspicion is the practice of

taking honey away from the bees

and filling hives with sugar

syrup.

That's like feeding your kids

junk food and then them feeding

their kids junk food.

Push that over 100 generations.

How healthy are your

great-great-grandchildren going

to be?

That's what we've done with the

honeybee.

We've fed them empty sugars when

they should be receiving the

rich diet of raw nectars from

the flower.

The privilege of being a

beekeeper is not to generate as

much honey as possible.

We keep bees so we can

contribute to pollination.

And, actually, the future of

beekeeping is not in one

beekeeper with 60,000 hives.

Rather, it's 60,000 people with

one hive, all of them

approaching the art and the

craft of being a keeper of bees

as a holistic practice.

Dee lusby is considered the

queen bee of the organic

beekeeping movement.

By early 2008, her organic

beekeeping yahoo! Group had over

1,000 members, prompting her to

hold the first annual organic

beekeeping conference.

Organic beekeepers do not feed

their bees sugar syrups or

artificial pollen substitutes

commonly used by commercial

outfits.

They also stand fervently

against the use of miticides,

toxic chemicals some beekeepers

put in their own hives to combat

mites.

A decorated Vietnam veteran, Dee

resides in the remote desert

outside Tucson and eats a gallon

of honey every week.

What do you think ccd is?

I think it's a combination

that when a bee is out of sync

with nature, nature's gonna come

in with all types of parasites,

all types of viruses, bacteria,

fungus, diseases... and they're

going to take down what

shouldn't belong there.

It's a sad state, because

they're forced... a lot of these

people are forced to go

migratory, because they cannot

sell their honey and make a

living.

And by being forced to go

migratory, they're forced to go

into factory farming.

And once they're on the road,

when they don't have access for

foraging, then they're forced to

artificially feed them.

And then if they artificially

feed them, and they're on the

road and something happens...

Normally, every move you make,

you lose 10% of your queens.

Then you're forced to buy

artificial queens.

And once you're forced into the

migratory, you're forced into a

system that's like going down a

road to hell.

I wouldn't be here keeping

these bees today if it wouldn't

be for pollination.

I mean, we can't compete with

the world honey prices, because

China and Argentina and all them

people have got us just pinned

up against the wall.

Four or five years ago, honey

came in here with

chloramphenicol in it.

You ever hear of that

antibiotic?

It causes aplastic anemia, and

it was in the honey from China.

And they found it and stopped

it.

And now the guy is bringing in

honey blends and selling it as

honey.

These are container loads of

honey coming into this country

they're blends of honey.

This one right here is four

container loads of honey with

lactose syrup in it.

Yeah. That's made from milk.

I mean, every one of these has

got a blend of something in it.

This one here's got

high fructose corn syrup.

Here's another one.

They brought in three loads with

beet sugar in it.

And that same honey is sitting

right up here.

Is this where you're gonna

take us?

Yeah.

Don't show this on camera.

Okay.

You can look at it right

here.

Matter of fact, just... you got

the camera off?

Turn it off.

We can't stay here too long,

now, 'cause he gon' be

suspicious.

See this big pile of green drums

right here?

Yep.

All right.

That is the blend.

That's the fake honey.

It'll all say "product of China"

on there.

Yeah... "product of China."

But it's coming in at some

ridiculous assessed value where

there's no duties on it.

They cleared the value at

18 cents a pound!

And people at customs let them

do it!

Now, there ain't no honey at

18 cents a pound!

You can't even buy water at

18 cents a pound!

Can't do anything!

And this guy's just been doing

it for years and destroying the

whole industry.

If you took out all the funny

honey... we call it funny honey,

that's not pure honey... if you

took that off the market that's

coming into this country, maybe

the price of honey would go up.

But the problem of it is, you

know, fda doesn't really care.

Yeah, that goes to all the

bakeries, like general mills,

pillsbury, kellogg's, whoever.

But it's just a shame to see how

this country's gon' wake up one

day and there's not gon' be any

bees left.

And people gon' be asking,

"well, why aren't there the

fruits and vegetables that we

normally buy at the stores?"

And they're gon' tell them...

Say, "well, the ship didn't come

in from central or South America

or somewhere, so we won't have

anything this week.

Come back next week."

And people are gonna be used to

that.

Somewhere around 35% of the

fruits and vegetables we eat now

are already imported.

And, you know, there's a train

of thought out here in some

areas of agriculture, you know,

that in another 10 years, we're

gonna be importing most of our

fruits and vegetables.

Food's gonna come from China

now.

The food's gonna come from

Mexico.

But if we get in a world of hurt

and they need the food for

themselves, then who's gonna

feed us?

I don't know of anybody.

In early 2008, honeybee

die-offs were still occurring

all over the world, and no

common link had been discovered

as the cause.

As scientists continued to

search for a solution, migratory

beekeepers struggled to fulfill

their pollination contracts.

Tending to the first crop of the

year and the most profitable for

beekeepers, hackenberg and

Mendes worked side by side,

inspecting hives in the almond

orchards of California.

They might not be healthy.

Here's the queen.

Happy, happy. There she is.

She's pretty, too.

Yeah.

Isn't that gorgeous?

Yeah. Beautiful.

They're laying eggs.

That's a positive sign.

That means they're...

They're happy.

Yeah, there you go.

Hello?

Hackenberg and Mendes got

word that their friend and

fellow beekeeper Bret adee had

just discovered a massive

collapse of his hives.

They drove over to witness what

would be the worst case of

colony collapse disorder ever

recorded.

40,000 beehives had gone from

healthy colonies to empty boxes

in a matter of weeks.

2 billion bees... gone.

This is a photo opportunity?

Is this a Kodak photo spot?

I guess.

It keeps going all the way up

into the hills!

Every semi spot.

In the back of your mind, you

can imagine... you think you

have an idea of what this looks

like.

You can't.

You can't imagine this.

This is like the pictures of the

holocaust.

This is a bee holocaust right

here.

I just want to see if there's

dead... there should be...

This is what's disturbing.

There should be dead... you see

this many hives?

That's not enough dead bees

here for this many hives.

I had a bad day in that bee

yard in ruskin, Florida, when I

lost 400 hives of bees.

Standing in Bret adee's bee

yard out here, you know,

15 miles west of here...

That's one of

the worst days of my life, I

mean, standing there, looking

at, I mean, the devastation.

I seen one hive sitting

there.

I don't know if there's any bees

left in it.

I don't know if there's anything

here or not.

Just a little drizzle, a few

bees there.

They're not enough.

They're not viable.

No. They... they're gone.

They just don't know it yet.

There's like six bees there.

There's no queen, so...

This last meeting in

Sacramento, this beekeepers

meeting, there were several

beekeepers that walked up to

hackenberg and said, you know,

"I owe you an apology.

I heard you talk about this a

year ago, and I thought you were

just a bad beekeeper.

And now I've seen this in my own

hives, and I was all wrong.

With colony collapse disorder

striking the second year in a

row, scientists still had not

found a smoking gun.

Slowly, the investigation turned

to the farming practices that

had made us so dependent upon

bees in the first place.

We used to have farms where

the farmer had pigs, and they

grew some corn, and they had a

large garden, and they had

chickens.

So the farms were diversified.

That was the typical American

farm.

Today, what we have are farmers

who grow corn, or farmers who

have an apple orchard... one or

the other.

They don't grow corn and have

apples.

It's large, large acreages...

Hundreds, sometimes thousands,

of acres of one thing.

That's a monoculture.

There are not likely to be a

lot of bees around a

monoculture.

Why is that?

Because for 50 weeks a year in

that monoculture, there is

nothing to eat, so what bee

would ever hang around?

You'd have to be stupid.

It contradicts the logic of the

natural world.

You don't find monocultures in

nature.

Nature just doesn't work that

way.

Nature doesn't put all her eggs

in one basket.

So in order to keep a

monoculture going, you need a

lot of intervention.

Once you have monoculture, you

need pesticides, because pests

love monocultures.

You know, every plant, every

animal, has its pests or

diseases.

And when that pest or disease

encounters a monoculture, it's a

party.

I mean, you know, there's so

much food that its population

explodes.

It makes it a real struggle

to control pests, because once

they get established, all that

they need is there, and they can

really, really take off.

So, to uphold monoculture

farming, we spray our crops with

deadly chemicals.

But when did the widespread use

of pesticides begin?

How were they invented?

Here in Germany... in

leverkusen, actually... there

was a school for chemical

warfare in the first world

war.

And the German army was the

first one to introduce chemical

warfare.

And after the first world war,

when there was not much need for

chemical warfare, they kind of

co-invented pesticides.

It was the civilian use of

nearly the same class of warfare

chemicals.

These were munitions.

These were chemicals used in

munitions being transferred to

use in the private sector.

And this was viewed by the

chemical companies as a perfect

transformation of their

industry.

Chemical warfare and

pesticides are just the two

sides of one medal.

It's chemically nearly

identical, and it was the same

companies and even the same

persons who invented these

substances.

I mean, we've taken things

that was left over from

world war ii and made chemicals

out of them for agriculture to

feed ourselves.

I mean, we tried to kill people

with this stuff.

And now we're

trying to kill the bugs with it.

And then we're trying to eat the

stuff!

So, you know, does it make a lot

of sense?

I don't think so.

But, you know, I'm just a dumb

beekeeper.

As pesticides moved from the

battlefields onto the

marketplace, the chemicals did

not always deliver the great

benefits they promised.

[ Dramatic instrumental music

[ playing ]

With the possibility of a

serious infantile paralysis

epidemic, health authorities of

the city of San Antonio, Texas,

attacked the germ carrier

throughout the city.

With the war-discovered ddt in

special sprayers, sections of

the city are blanketed with the

insecticide in the fight to stop

the spread of the dread

poliomyelitis.

Tons of ddt are used in this

fight against the dread disease,

whose principal target is the

young.

Again, war has contributed one

of its discoveries to save life.

Ddt, chlorpyrifos... chemical

after chemical that were

defended.

These chemicals were defended as

represent-acceptable risks in

one decade and banned in the

next as unacceptable.

I don't like to use more

chemicals.

It would be nice not to have

to use them.

It'd be nice not to have to

use them, but... You cannot raise

a good crop without using

chemicals.

If we tried to go back to

growing everything organically,

the insects... if you have done

any studying at all, you would

find the insects would take over

the world if we didn't use means

to control them.

Pesticides are designed to

kill bugs that damage crops.

But spraying these chemicals has

often caused big problems for

the little bee.

Honeybees and pesticides have

always had some interaction...

Mostly negative... because bees

are put on crops, and crops are

usually sprayed in some way,

often with pesticides.

They've had a long history of

being impacted by pesticides.

I've been in the pollination

business right from the

beginning, and I've worked

around pesticides always.

And there's been a strong move

in this country to get away from

the old-style pesticides.

When you had a problem, and the

bees got into some kind of spray

right away, you knew it.

There was dead bees, a drop in

the population.

Until recently, farmers

applied pesticides topically by

spraying their crops.

Beekeepers could protect their

bees by moving them away during

spraying.

If pesticides did cause a

problem, they could tell from

the dead bees surrounding the

hives.

Eventually, the older-style

pesticides were replaced by

newer, supposedly safer ones.

Unlike the old, short-lived

chemicals, these systemic

pesticides remained within the

plant throughout its life.

Most conventional pesticides,

you have a... well, you say, a

tomato plant.

You spray the material over the

plant.

Insect feeds on the leaves, and

it dies.

Systemic pesticides... you feed

it in irrigation, or you put it

on the seed.

It then gets incorporated.

It moves within the plant itself

and can either be expressed in

the leaves... it's circulated in

the leaves, or, in some cases,

it can be expressed in the

pollen and the nectar when that

plant blooms.

These pesticides kill insects

by inflicting sub-lethal damage.

They weaken immune systems,

disrupt digestion, impair

navigational abilities, and

subtly harm the brain.

These effects can be

particularly detrimental to

colonial insects like honeybees.

If lost or separated from the

colony, a single honeybee cannot

survive for more than 24 hours

without her hive.

Since their introduction,

systemic pesticides have become

the fastest-growing insecticides

in the world.

With brand-names like gaucho and

poncho, they came to be widely

used in the U.S. in 2003, not

long before the advent of colony

collapse disorder.

With the newer-style

pesticides, the systemics, you

can have exposure and have no

symptoms for many months.

But when the symptoms do occur,

it's devastating.

Products that are being used

right now have been tested and

found to be safe around bees,

and that's true on a lethal

dose.

When the bees go to the flower,

it's not enough product to kill

them.

But the issue of what's brought

back to the hive and what's fed

to the bees in their

developmental stages is not only

not required to be studied, all

that research is absent.

It doesn't exist.

What we're concerned about is

low-level, sub-lethal doses over

a long period of time, and what

effect that has on the health of

the bees.

But measuring the sub-lethal

damage done by pesticides was

challenging.

Maryann Frazier, a research

scientist at

penn state university, began to

explore whether pesticides, and

particularly these new systemic

pesticides, could explain the

nation's dwindling honeybee

population.

In order to look at the

impact of pesticides, we have to

collect samples.

And so we collect these samples

of either honey or pollen, or in

the field, we might collect

samples of bees and/or wax.

The initial question was, you

know, are pesticides, and, in

particular, systemic pesticides,

causing ccd?

What we did was participate in

the large ccd project.

And from that, we found an

incredible amount of pesticides.

And the question then became

much more complicated.

Yes, the pesticides are there.

There's no doubt.

What is the impact of those

pesticides?

"What are they doing to the

bees?" is now the question.

This idea that these pesticides

that we're seeing at very, very

small levels are causing

sub-lethal effects is a much

more difficult thing to try to

diagnose, to try to understand.

The fact that they, again, might

be interfering with the nervous

system of the bees and, thus,

interfering with their ability

to learn or to remember, or

their immune system...

Interfering with their ability

to have a strong, healthy immune

system to be able to fight off

diseases.

With colony collapse

devastating bees for a second

year, the plight of these prime

pollinators move to the nation's

capital, where a congressional

hearing was held to discuss

honeybee health.

David hackenberg and Dave Mendes

traveled to Washington, D.C., to

voice their concerns about their

bees and our environment.

In February of last year, top

agriculture researchers, in

conjunction with the usda,

termed this massive decline in

honeybees as colony collapse

disorder and set out to pinpoint

the cause of this problem.

Many beekeepers in my district

have been financially and

emotionally devastated by the

rapid loss of their bee

colonies.

Next up, I would like to call on

Mr. David Mendes, vice president

of the American beekeeping

federation, from north Myers,

Florida.

Welcome, sir.

The floor is yours.

I would like to be able to

tell you that over the last

18 months, we have figured out

the cause of ccd, but that would

not be an accurate statement.

What I can tell you is that many

beekeepers have a pretty good

idea of what is hurting their

bees.

What's happened now... these new

products, these systemics, they

can be applied to the soil.

They can be applied foliarly.

They can be seed-treated, on

corn, for instance.

My own experience and experience

of several beekeepers is you

bring your bees to an area where

these products are being used.

Several months later, they're

collapsing.

The bees that you left in the

woods far away from those

crops... they're just fine.

I am sure that most of the

people at this hearing are aware

of recent actions in Germany to

restrict the use of many

systemic pesticides.

This follows regulatory actions

originally implemented in France

to limit the use of these

products until they can be

clearly proven to be safe to

honeybees and other beneficial

insects.

Bees disappearing from their

hives would have been of great

concern to Napoleon Bonaparte,

who made honeybees a symbol of

his reign.

The oldest beekeeping school in

the world still exists in the

jardin du Luxembourg, and hives

can even be found listening to

the arias on the roof of the

Paris opera house.

15 years ago, bees in France

began to disappear in a manner

similar to colony collapse

disorder, which they called

mad bee disease.

Decrying the massive bee

deaths to be much more than a

bad beekeeping issue, French

beekeepers took to the streets.

Thousands gathered to stage

protests in cities across

France, at the Eiffel Tower, and

in front of bayer cropscience,

the company that manufactures

the systemic pesticides in

question, like gaucho and

poncho.

Reviewing the evidence in the

courtroom and listening to the

cries of the public, the French

minister of agriculture banned

the systemic pesticides on corn

and sunflowers.

To learn more about the bans,

hackenberg and Mendes traveled

across the Atlantic to an

international beekeeping

conference in France.

Henri clement invited them to

speak and compare notes with

European beekeepers and

scientists firsthand.

Can you go all the way to the

top?

I guess you can.

I don't want to do that.

It's very important to have a

relation between the beekeepers

in France, in Europe, in U.S.,

because it's a big program.

It's not only varroa or...

No, no, no, no, no.

It's pesticide.

Well, we think so, too.

The problem we have in the

states is that we need the

science.

We still don't have the science

that it's enough for the

government.

What we find is the pesticides

start... they start the process,

and then the viruses are a

problem.

Okay, okay. Yes, yes, but...

For me, the problem is, in

first, pesticides, and the

effect of pesticides.

Viruses, nosema cerana,

verroa's more a problem.

When you are intoxicated,

you...

Yes. Yes.

The spring of 2004, we put

bees on apples in upstate.

New York, and they were sprayed

with assail, which is a systemic

bayer product.

The scientists are finding it in

the pollen.

They're finding it... you know,

we're finding it...

It's not a problem of finding

it.

It's what we're gonna do about

it, because our environmental

protection folks have put it out

there, and it's now our

responsibility to prove to them

that there's a problem.

One of our goals in coming

here to Europe is to learn what

research, what science you've

already worked on, so that we

can bring it home and use it to

change our laws, also.

That's the problem where it

happens.

That's what we're seeing... the

second.

Not the first... the second.

Okay.

It's very difficult to prove.

Because of the time.

You can't link the cause and

the effects.

We suspect that when it's in

the pollen, it's affecting the

bees a different way in their

developmental stages... that the

bees that hatch out, their

nervous system is affected in

some way so that they don't show

any physical difference, but

something's wrong with them.

And it seems to take more than

one generation.

We had the opportunity to sit

down with scientists and

beekeepers here and talk about

our problems and their problems.

And for the most part... you

know, there's some differences,

but for the most part, they seem

to be, you know, quite the same.

Beekeepers worldwide had

similar suspicions and followed.

France's lead, staging protests.

British beekeepers called for

research funding to address the

bee crisis.

What do we want?!

8 million!

When do we want it?!

Now!

We don't want much!

You've given it to the banks!

We want 8 million!

Save our bees!

Save our agriculture!

Concerned over bee health,

countries like Italy, Germany,

and Slovenia also placed bans on

certain systemic pesticides that

beekeepers and others believe

underlie the mystifying symptoms

of colony collapse disorder.

Most European governments use

the precautionary principle when

approving the use of pesticides.

This places safety as the main

priority when regulating toxic

chemicals, intending for errors

to always fall on the side of

caution.

The other thing it's interesting

to think about Europe is they're

living in a different idea.

They're in the precautionary,

you know.

"We're gonna take precautions.

If we think it's a problem,

we're gonna take it off the

market until we figure this

thing out."

Here in the United States, we're

just the opposite!

We just put it out there, and we

see what happens, you know?

The epa decides whether or

not to approve a pesticide based

on what is called risk

assessment.

This practice allows for

exposing the public to risk as

long as the epa determines those

risks are reasonable.

We're looking at an agency

that's regulating by risk

assessment, does not like the

precautionary principle at all

as a matter of practice or

philosophy, and essentially is

saying, "we can mitigate risks

of chemicals."

The problem, however, is because

of our failed regulatory

systems, we're still not asking

the full range of questions that

need to be asked before we

register these chemicals.

And one of the things we're not

asking adequately are the

sub-lethal effects of chemicals.

Epa regulations deal with

lethal doses to adult bees.

Their perception is they've done

their job, but there's a big

hole missing.

When they change the nature of

the pesticides, the mode of

action, they needed to change

the regulation, and that did not

occur.

Another problem beekeepers

have with the epa's approval

process is sometimes referred to

as the fox guarding the

hen house.

But who funds research?

Do you know how epa works in

this country?

Epa doesn't do any research.

The manufacturer does all the

research.

They submit it to epa, and they

either say yes or no or "we need

more information."

When I talked to the state here

to ask them about it, and I

said, "well,

university of Florida or usda...

Who's done the research on

this?" they referred me to the

toxicologist at bayer.

I picked up the phone.

I talked to him.

I spoke to the toxicologist.

He said, "I'll send you the

studies."

He sent me the studies.

I look at them.

They put imidacloprid in sugar

syrup.

They feed it to adult bees.

They look at 1 days, 2 days, 3

days, and that's the end of the

story.

And when I spoke to the

toxicologist, I said, "how about

the brood, the developing?"

"We don't look there.

We don't have to."

So the agency whose job it is

to actually decide whether

pesticides are safe relies on

the data supplied by the very

companies who would most profit

from their use.

I don't know.

They really should take

"protection" out of their label,

because they ain't protecting

nothing.

I mean, they're just... you

know, they're not protecting

anything.

They're just environmental

whatever, you know?

When people discount the

whole argument about pesticides,

they say, "well, you've been

around pesticides for years."

You know, "what's different

now?"

Well, this is what's different,

is the residuals... how long the

products last.

The systemics are designed to

have long residuals.

When they're used over a

period of time, they leave a

long-lasting residue in the

soil, and they accumulate with

time.

And what hasn't been looked at

very much yet is that

accumulation over time and what

that does.

What is the level after a period

of time?

Is it enough to kill a bee?

Probably.

To us, this begs the

question, what are these

pesticides in combination doing?

We all know that when we go to

the pharmacist, the first thing

they want to know is what other

prescriptions are you taking,

because they're concerned about

the potential interaction of

compounds.

We know that some of these

things synergize... that

together, two of these things

can be more toxic than either

one can be on its own.

It's like going back to

chemistry class, you know?

You took a little bit of this, a

little bit of that, it was fine.

You dumped it out.

Everything is fine.

You pour it together, and it's

still okay.

Then you get a third thing, and

you dumped it in, and it started

to sizzle a little bit.

You found something else where

you dumped it in.

All of a sudden, boom!

You blow the whole place up!

Synergism has never been really

looked at.

Nobody has ever tested it.

They don't have to, because

that's not what the rules at epa

say.

The real answer to why a

federal agency like epa in the.

U.S. is not asking what is

obvious or what any scientist

would think is logical is the

chemical company influence.

We put agencies like the epa

in place to moderate the avarice

of corporations, and they have

not done it.

Instead, they've been corrupted.

I cynically say that they've

become a bunch of "pestitutes."

I tell people, when they ask

me about something, I say,

"well, I got to ask the bees."

And they say, "well, what are

you... Dr. Dolittle?

Do you talk to the bees?"

And I say, "yeah."

I mean, it's not a verbal

exchange, but if you want...

You can have all the theories in

the world, but you have to go

out and ask the bees.

The bees are telling us that

this is a complex issue.

But the human brain, I think,

believes that we know better,

and we can identify the one

cause of the problem, when, in

fact, there are a constellation

of complex factors that

interrelate, coexist, create

synergies, additive and

cumulative effects that the

scientific process does not

measure.

In one sense, it's a mystery.

We don't know exactly what's

responsible.

Is is a particular virus?

Is it a particular pesticide?

And there are many conflicting

theories.

But in the larger sense, we know

exactly what's responsible, and

that is these huge monocultures

in American agriculture and

world agriculture that are

making bees' lives very

difficult and creating

conditions where they're

vulnerable to disease and

exposed to pesticides.

In our culture, scientists have

the last word, the ultimate

authority, in commenting on

matters having to do with

biology.

There are other forms of

knowledge, very powerful forms

of knowledge, about biology.

There is local knowledge.

There is the knowledge of

beekeepers and the knowledge of

people who, you know, are just

really great observers of the

natural world.

The pesticide scientists say,

"well," you know, "the science

doesn't say this."

Well, their science may not say

this, but I'm living in a world

of real reality.

These bees are reality.

We should listen, because

very often, traditional

knowledge gets there before the

scientists.

We do know that in these same

areas, every time we encounter

corn, soybeans, and all these

crops that have been treated

with systemic pesticides, the

bees fall apart.

In American agriculture, more

than 95% of the food we eat is

treated with pesticides.

Over a billion pounds of these

toxic chemicals are used on

crops annually.

What could be driving the U.S.

To produce food in such a way?

I don't think the farmer is

looking for the quick fix.

The farmer is part of the whole

system that's based on

production quantity, cheap food.

Cheap food is not as cheap as

it looks.

You pay the price eventually.

You pay it in terms of

environmental damage.

You pay it in terms of future

health damage.

And food that looks expensive

today may not be in the long

term if it helps keep you

healthier.

Well, big agriculture, you

know, and the people that drive

big agriculture... you know, the

chemical companies, the seed

companies, and everybody else,

you know, have got this

mentality that the fact is, you

know, another 10 years, we're

not gonna grow fruits and

vegetables... that we're gonna

be the corn-, soybean-, cotton-,

canola-producing country of the

world, and let everybody else

produce the fruits and

vegetables.

20 years ago, the average

crop of corn, the average yield

per acre, was 75 bushels to the

acre.

Today, it's 150 bushels.

Genetically modified crops,

systemic pesticides... they're

predicting to go to 300 bushel

per acre in another 20 years.

This is seen as success.

Whether the quality of that corn

is the same, whether it makes us

sick, or what it does to us, is

secondary.

My take on colony collapse is

it is one of the signs, the

really unmistakable signs, that

our food system is

unsustainable... that word that

we all throw around but means

something very specific, which

is to say it's destroying the

conditions upon which it

depends.

It has internal contradictions

that will lead to breakdown.

The question of whether we

can actually feed the world

without toxic chemicals I think

has long been answered.

Despite all our modern

ingenuity, we have the same

degree of crop loss today that

we had before the pesticide

revolution.

You know, we're still losing

about 1/3 of our crop in

conventional agriculture to

infestations.

That's a big loss.

And we never lost more than

that, and we never will lose

more than that in non-chemical

systems.

While safer alternatives

exist, the current agricultural

landscape impacts more than just

the honeybee.

Many feel other life on earth

has also been adversely impacted

by pesticide residuals moving

through our ecosystem.

You know, this issue with

systemic pesticide just isn't

honeybees.

This is all of them, you know,

all the native pollinators.

I mean, you know, the bats, the

hummingbirds, the other solitary

bees.

Not only birds, fish, and

insects are put at risk from the

widespread use of pesticides.

The reality itself, aside

from what's moral or not, should

be driving us to step back and

question whether all the money

in the world can buy us an

environment or good health.

And, you know, obviously, the

answer is it can't.

We're not killing people with

pesticides, per se.

We don't see the dead bodies by

the hives or in the streets.

But we're causing enough

deterioration of systems in the

body... causing autism in

humans, or we're causing

learning disabilities.

And we're causing mechanisms in

bees to erode to the extent that

they can't forage correctly or

navigate correctly.

In 2010, late fall of 2009,

2010, looks like this is gonna

be the worst loss of bees since,

you know, ccd has started.

What I've done, and other

beekeepers have done, is I'm

gonna be 400 miles away from

home this spring to keep my bees

away from areas that I think are

gonna hurt them.

You have to be accepting of the

fact that no matter what you

do... you do all the right

things... 1/3 of them are gonna

die.

We're in a war, somewhat, here,

and we're gonna lose a

percentage of our troops

consistently.

We're gonna keep fighting.

To help beekeepers in their

fight, one of america's leading

environmental groups has come to

the aid of the honeybees.

Nrdc sued epa in federal

court in New York because epa

had messed up the registration

of the systemic pesticide

movento.

Our attention at nrdc was called

to this issue by beekeepers who

noticed that their hives were

literally depopulated.

And one of the odd things about

this particular chemical is that

you didn't see, for example, a

pile of dead bees outside the

hive.

They just disappeared.

Nrdc has won every step of the

way and has stopped the retail

sale of the systemic pesticide

movento.

Worldwide, beekeepers,

scientists, and concerned

citizens have recognized

systemic pesticides as a

problem.

And now many are looking to

France to see if the bans have

led to any improvements.

Initially, guenther hauk

hoped to bring healing to the

heartlands.

But after witnessing the ill

effects of big agro business, he

decided to relocate far away

from monoculture farming.

We had to move from the farm

in Illinois, the 610-acre farm.

And we found this wonderful

place in Virginia, in Floyd,

where we are not surrounded by

monsanto corn and soy, but by

pastures and fields and hay

fields.

The bees are the life guarantors

of nature itself, so we have to

try... we have to try to take

care of them.

By taking care of them, we take

care of ourselves.

Einstein said a beautiful word.

He said, "we cannot change the

problems that we have with the

same mind-set that have caused

them."

Our mind-set has to undergo a

great transformation.

I think this approach to more

sustainable agriculture, where

you're incorporating places for

native pollinators and native

wildlife and other plants and

pesticide-free areas for

insects... I think that's the

future.

I don't think it's going back to

how we farmed 100 years ago.

I think it's looking at modern

farming and making sure modern

farming lives in Harmony with

the environment.

Right now, in 2010, the

organic beekeepers is up to

about 3,400 members, going for

4,000.

And yet, when I started, it was

like, let's see if you can get

300.

So, it's grown.

According to one perspective,

colony collapse disorder is a

blessing in disguise.

Not only has it placed bees at

the forefront of our

consciousness, the widespread

concern has sparked a surge of

hobby beekeepers.

Folks are helping bees and

everything else by bringing

these fuzzy pollinators into

their own neighborhoods.

The buzz prompted the city of.

New York to legalize beekeeping

in the five boroughs.

On march 24, 2010, the big apple

changed legislation, following

the lead of cities like Seattle,

Chicago, and San Francisco.

In France, they march in the

streets with their tractors, and

the government changes things.

In the United States, it doesn't

work that way.

People need to call their

congressman and senators and

complain.

Tell them, "hey, I don't like

the way things are.

I'm concerned about what I'm

eating.

I'm concerned about the bees.

I'm concerned about all other

insects that are disappearing."

One of the things that I've

realized in america is that

politicians respond to letters.

And I also know that they

respond to the media.

I don't know if any of you

guys have heard about this

article in the New York times.

Well, apparently, honeybees are

disappearing all over the

country, tens of millions of

them just disappearing.

There's no bodies, no sign of

them.

They're just mysteriously gone.

It's scary, huh?

No bees means no honey.

It's nature's way of saying,

"can you hear me now?"

[ Electronic hip-hop music

[ playing ]

Yo, where my bees at?

Support your local organic

farmer.

Plant a seed.

Make the planet a healthy place

where the bees can thrive!

By saving the bees, we save a

lot more than the bees.

There are practical solutions

you and I can do every day to

save the bees.

The first place to start is at

home, by cutting the use of

toxic chemicals in our houses

and on our lawns.

Safe alternatives to pesticides

and holistic gardening practices

are often more effective than

the poisons, which have run amok

in the suburbs as well as the

cornfields.

We don't have to wait for the

government to act on some of

these issues.

Even though it's important the

government do act, we can do

something today.

We get to vote three times a day

for what we're gonna eat and

what we're not gonna eat.

And both decisions are equally

important, so that voting with

your fork is, you know, a very

powerful thing.

And by doing so, you can nurture

the food systems that will take

better care of the bees.

Choosing organic produce is

another effective way to help

the bees and keep you and your

planet healthy.

More bee saving can be done by

shopping at the local farmers

market, which provides both a

fun outing and delicious,

healthy food.

If these options aren't

available or organic food seems

too expensive, you can plant a

garden and grow your own organic

produce.

Even people living in apartments

can keep window gardens.

You know, do you have a lawn?

Lawns don't offer much to bees.

They don't offer much to us,

either.

Rip out your lawn and put in a

garden.

Put in flowering plants.

Create habitat for bees.

It's not very hard to attract

bees to your property.

We wanted to have a vegetable

garden, because this is the

first time that we lived in a

house with how we could have a

garden.

And I had been hearing a lot

about bees not having enough

food because of urbanization.

And we decided...

To plant some.

Yeah.

So we got a gardening book.

We "builded" this.

We did build this.

Hello?

And I just love that my

daughter's learning, like, to

have a love of nature.

To have just a little bit of

nature in your yard is nice.

The plight of the little bee

has also inspired gardens in big

places.

In the spring of 2009,

first lady Michelle Obama

planted an organic garden at the

white house.

And to help the fruits and

vegetables grow, the garden

holds a beehive.

And hopefully, you know, we

can make a change in this thing

for the good of not only the

honeybees, but for everybody

else!