Synopsis: "The Beekeepers" is an experimental documentary film that explores Colony Collapse Disorder. Combining interviews with archival footage, it charts the history of the ancient profession of beekeeping, looking for answers to its current crisis. Through experimental techniques and mixed media, it weaves a story that combines interviews of contemporary beekeepers with ancient accounts of historical beekeepers, including Virgil and Aristotle. Finding that honeybees have been used for everything from tracking global warming to testing the U.S. Army’s Toxic Waste Sites, “The Beekeepers” questions what the bees might be telling us about the environment. As the honeybee is the often called the new “canary in the coal mine”, the film concludes with asking, “what will happen if this new canary dies?”
