Earlier this week we highlighted a new clearing house for bee news, and now we have come across another, deeper well of knowledge related to bees, and all that they do/provide more than honey. Who knew, for example, that among the important physical realm issues he pondered, bees figured into this man’s thinking:

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” Albert Einstein

This and more, from CIBER (Centre of Integrative Bee Research) at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Western Australia. Their cross-disciplinary research team includes:

scientists from different biological fields such as evolutionary biology, ecology or molecular biology as well as a number of artists in residence. CIBERs main aim is to do state of the art research on honeybees and other social insects with the aim to develop new avenues to safeguard honeybees and their pollination services. To do this, CIBER maintains close links to the local beekeeping industry as well as governmental institutions and an international network of collaborators.

We like their description, in the press release they share about this movie previewed on Vimeo above, of the importance of bees, and the importance of increasing the availability of good news to strengthen our resolve in dealing with the bad news:

More than Honey

Worldwide, millions of honeybee colonies are dying each year. A complete understanding about its causes is yet to be determined, but one thing is certain: We are not just dealing with a few dead insects, and there’s more at stake than just a bit of honey. “If the bee goes extinct, man will surely follow within four years” is how Albert Einstein might have worded the problem.

In today’s industrialized agriculture, honeybees are invaluable for their pollination services. A third of all the food we eat has been pollinated by honeybees.

However, our dependency is mutual. Humans benefit from the bees – but the honeybee followed in man’s footsteps and thereby achieved worldwide expansion. “White man’s fly”, Native Americans called it, because it arrived with the Europeans and seemed altogether so alike in character: greedy, aggressive and diligent until death.

However, the balance of power seems to shift in recent times. Is today’s situation just a momentary fluke in the unwritten contract between human and bee or are we facing the early stages of a total collapse of the system? Is it caused by bees or us?

Searching for answers “More than Honey” takes us around the world to meet people living with and off honeybees. On our trip we meet almond growers in California, a Swiss mountain beekeeper, a neuroscientist investigating bee brains in Berlin, a pollen dealer in China, and a bee researcher in Australia. We even get to see “killer bees” invading the New World. We gain spectacular visual insights into the beehive –a fascinating world of fighting queens and dancing workers, of highly sophisticated swarm intelligence, where the individual constantly serves the requirements of the community.

The relationship between humans and honeybees tells us a lot about ourselves, about nature and about our future. We understand that stability is just as unhealthy as unlimited growth and that it is crisis and catastrophe that fuels evolutionary developments. And we learn that a remedy might sometimes arise in the camouflage of a catastrophe and from a totally unexpected source.

Everybody talks about the death of the honeybee. “More than Honey” shows us more about it’s life.

© 2012 zero one film / Ormenis Film