Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? - Documentary Movie Review

Queen of the Sun is an indepth study about bees and their importance to Earth's sustainability. It delves into the history of beekeeping and investigates the causes, implications and impending impact of the colony collapse disorder, which is currently reaching epidemic proportions.

The current colony collapse crisis has a lot of people thinking about honeybees. Everyone -- from farmers and honey lovers to epidemiologists and environment activists -- is wondering why these creatures that pack such an extraordinary amount of intelligence and information into their tiny brains are abandoning their hives and disappearing.

The phenomenon known as bee colony collapse disorder is of universal concern, not only for reasons of curiosity and philosophical inquiry, but because bees are primary and essential cross pollinators and are necessary for our cultivation of food.

Queen of the Sun takes a comprehensive view of the highly specialized role of bees in nature, the history of bees in human culture and commerce, the history of commercial beekeeping and the intricacies and mysteries of life in the hive.

Bees, you will find, are complex and highly accomplished creatures whose colonies reflect a collective goal-oriented discipline and rigorous social organization unparalleled by those of other Earthly creatures, including human beings. Throughout recorded history, bees have been revered, feared and generally misunderstood. In Queen of the Sun, filmmaker Taggert Siegel sets the record straight through on camera expert testimony, including interviews with beekeepers struggling to keep their hives healthy, scientists researching bee problems and food growers who rely on bee colonies. With beautiful cinematography, Siegel takes you inside the hives and reveals their mysteries. You can't help but be fascinated.

In view of what we quickly come to understand as an impending honeybee disaster, Siegel advocates for bees and for their protection. What disaster? The disappearance of honeybees would put an end to natural cross pollination, thereby making food cultivation impossible and denude Planet Earth of plants that rely on cross pollination for reproduction. Doomsday, in a word. The worries about bees are not exactly new. Back in 1923, Rudolph Steiner, the Austrian scientist and progressive thinker, predicted the demise of the honeybee in 80 to 10 years -- or now. Looking at issues raised by use of new and dangerous pesticides, unnatural cultivation of one type of crop over vast areas of land and other environmental conditions, the film places the current disappearance of bees within the context of Steiner's prediction, and presents further theories and explanations of why colony collapse disorder is occurring. It delivers a message of urgency: Make speed to heed the bees.

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Film Details:

• Title: Queen Of The Sun: The Endangered World of Bees
• Director: Taggert Siegel
• Release Date: April, 2010
• Running Time: 83 mins.
• Parental Advisory: Content advisory for parents
• Locations: USA, New Zealand, Italy, France, Switzerland, UK, Australia and elsewhere around the globe.
• Language: English
• Production Country: USA
• Company: Collective Eye Films
• Official Website
• Trailer