More Than Honey

source: More Than Honey

A great example of how societies, in particular the largest abusive industrialized one, has removed themselves from the natural ecosystem and with total disrespect for that system which they are destroying. I can only assume how difficult it was to do this documentary and congratulate all involved. I have said for decades how we are like the snake eating its' own tail thus devouring itself and taking along with it nature, the innocent and the provider.

I think it's pretty certain that Albert Einstein did not say "If bees were to disappear from the globe, mankind would only have four years to live." That's a bit emblematic of my feelings about this documentary. It's filled with a lot of stunning bee photography and genuinely engaging and weird facts about bees ... people transport live bees by mail you know ... but it's also weirdly lackadaisical. It's a lot of fun if you want to stare at bees for an hour and a half. At the end (SPOILER, I guess) a whole hive of bees just ups and leaves, and their beekeeper can't do anything about it. That's awesome.

This was very interesting. Finding out a lot of information people did not know about bees and how they play a big roll in our economy. The graphics in this video were eye opening as well. Video was well produced.

This is a Swiss 90-minute documentary from 3 years ago and it deals from start to finish with honey farmers and the increasing problems in their profession. A lot of it has to do with the unexpected mass mortality of bees these days, for which there is no explanation. That is basically all there is to this documentary. If you are interested in bees, give it a watch, if not then stay away. There is nothing groundbreaking to see here really, but it's a solid, informative piece of filmmaking from start to finish. The writer and director is Markus Imhoof and he's been making movies since the 1970s already. He is way into his 70s now and maybe he retired after this documentary. At least he hasn't done any new films in the last 3 years and there is also nothing under the upcoming section of his body of work. "More than Honey" is actually more famous than I would have expected, because the topic is, in fact, really specific and I am fairly surprised this documentary reached such a great audience. Maybe this also has to do with the awards recognition they managed to get. It won Best Documentary for example at the German Film Awards and it got the honor to be Switzerland's official submission for the Acadmey Awards' foreign language category. Admittedly, a large part of the film is in English though. They follow bee farmers at several locations all around the world and one of them is the United States. So you will need no subtitles for this if you are a native English speaker. But you will for the rest. And even German speakers will need subtitles and not only for the English parts, also for the Swiss German segments as the old Swiss guy with the heavy beard speaks such a distinct version of Schwitzerdütsch that you will have no chance to understand what he is saying without subtitles. That's pretty much it. It's a decent documentary and all in all I recommend it.

Directed by Marcus Imhoof, "More than Honey" attempts an investigation into our world's dwindling bee population. Not as interesting as the similarly themed "Vanishing of the Bees", Imhoof's film nevertheless does well to stress the importance of bees - an integral part of our ecosystem - to the survival of the human race. "More than Honey" focuses on two beekeepers: Fred Jaggi, who lives in Switzerland, and John Miller, a Florida businessman. Both men adopt difficult approaches, Jaggi a traditionalist, Miller a hard-headed capitalist who lends his personal bee colonies to farms in need of pollination. Interviews with both occasionally give way to discussions with scientists and other beekeepers. Other subplots deal with bees being injected with hormones and pesticides, with parasitic mites penetrating bee colonies and with the many Chinese farmers forced to manually pollinate their crops. The film ends with surreal shots of bees flying off into outer space, suggestive of humanity's cosmic connection with even the smallest of organisms. Or perhaps the bees are simply abandoning us, finally ticked off with what we've forced them to endure. 8/10 – Worth one viewing.

There are a number of documentaries about bees and most are a labor of love; this one is no different. The makers of this film clearly have a great deal of respect and love for bees. Not a whole lot of new ground is covered as colony collapse has been discussed in many previous works, but the filmography makes this documentary one that is worth watching. They went out of their way to capture the best shot and the final product shows the quality of their work. For the layman, this film provides an inside look at the industrial nature of the apiary business. From breeding a queen to splitting the colony, you get to see how it is done and it is not always a pretty sight.

More Than Honey is a somewhat depressing documentary which offers a look behind the curtain at the real world of honey production. We see a Swiss farmer decapitating a live queen bee for the crime of ¨sleeping around¨. When foul broods are detected, the whole lot is subjected to sulfur gassing reminiscent of the holocaust. Then we have the Big Honey people who drive their hives around the United States in big trucks, renting them out like little hookers to farmers who need their crops to be pollinated. This itinerant worker lifestyle causes the bees a huge amount of stress, sometimes killing them en masse in the process, especially since they end up exposed to so many chemicals (pesticides) in the process. The bees are also administered drugs which weaken their constitution (both to fend off bacteria and mites, and to make them less aggressive). All of these chemical have clearly contributed to the large-scale demise of the bee as a species. I had watched an episode of Rotten (Netflix) on honey, where I learned that much grocery store honey has been adulterated with substitutes such as rice syrup. Now I know why: producing honey is a very time-consuming, labor intensive and fragile enterprise. When producers are after lots of money, and buyers want their honey cheap, the simplest solution has been to dilute honey with other sweeteners. So if you are buying the least expensive honey in the store, or even any that is not certified, it is likely not 100% honey. The tone of this film is reminiscent of something by Werner Herzog. Not only because of the German accents, but also because there is an undercurrent of doom and gloom throughout. The world is a place where human beings take what they want and do what they want and leave the consequences for future generations to deal with. Bees are just one chapter of this story.

More than Honey is a must see for every one. It should be shown in all schools and universities. This documentation contains many information about the secrets of the bees. The danger of their existence is told in a good comprehensive way. Then the shootings with the macro camera are unique what I never saw before. The worldwide research on the greatest continents is well studied and executed. The director created a very interesting movie that was never boring. At the end the audience can imagine itself the cause of the mass death of these wonderful and indispensable insects for our humanity. I hope we all are responsible about the possible consequences of the nature. Final rate: 6.5/10.

If you don't get the "noughties" reference, there was a song. Actually there are more than one song referring to Honey, as in spouse or at least girlfriend. But we are talking about actual honey here. And the movie has some devastating blows to deliver. It is also about the bees and the way we are treating them. A very interesting and intriguing documentary, it shows that sometimes they have more to offer than fiction movies. Not to mention that they should affect us more. Hopefully it will also take away the fear of bees many of us have, but I do doubt that. Bees should be more afraid of us actually. Watch this fantastic movie, that is heartbreaking too