More Than Honey Movie

[Violette Taps]

Morethan Honey is a 2012 Swiss documentary film directed by Markus Imhoof about honeybee colonies in California, Switzerland, China and Austria. The film was submitted for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[1][2]

More than Honey received an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 41 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus states: "A rare advocacy documentary that fully trusts its subject's ability to fascinate, More Than Honey enlightens without badgering -- and is all the more effective for it".[3] It also has a rating of 70% on Metacritic, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[4]

Bumblebee researcher Felicity Muth called the film "visually magnificent."[5] Stephen Holden, writing for the New York Times, calls the cinematography "spectacularly beautiful," and calls the film "a fascinating but rambling documentary."[6] Peter Bradshaw, writing for the Guardian, gave the movie three stars out of five and called it an "interestingly laidback film", opining that, "Imhoof seems disconcertingly untroubled" about the ecological challenges currently facing bees.[7]

In a recent conversation with a budding beekeeper, I was recommended the documentary, More than Honey. I decided to watch it, write a post about it, and call that the honey bee portion of the Year of Pollination. Part way through the movie, another documentary, Vanishing of the Bees, was recommended to me, and so I decided to watch both. Below are some thoughts about each film.

Do you remember Tevye, the poor milkman with five daughters in the musical Fiddler on the Roof who dreamed of being rich? What would you hope for if you were rich? Probably for some of the same things that he did. He wanted to be prominent, have a big house, not have to work so hard, and so on. But these were not his deepest desires. His fondest dream, if he were to strike it rich, may seem unusual to us. Remember, he sang:

In fact, in one sacrament meeting a youth speaker went to the pulpit with nothing but his scriptures. He had a lot of the same mannerisms that youth speakers often have, where they kind of duck their head and shuffle their feet, but his message was powerful. He taught about sacrifice, beginning with scriptures from the Old Testament about blood sacrifice. Then he moved very comfortably to 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon and told that old things were done away with the coming of the Savior, who now required the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. He used no notes, just his knowledge of the doctrine. It was exemplary of the way each of us should teach from the scriptures.

In another African country I found more people hungering to be taught the word of the Lord. The day we arrived there was a government crackdown on transportation because there was no fuel. The stake president was sure that the 700 members who had planned on attending our fireside would have no way to get there. We assured him we would teach as many or as few as could come. When we walked into the arranged room 20 minutes prior to the beginning of the meeting and saw more than 300 reverent Saints assembled, quietly listening to hymns being played on a recorder, I was overcome by the Spirit. During the course of the meeting, somehow, by some miracle, 300 more people arrived. They were hungry for the words of the Lord. They all had their scriptures and followed along eagerly as we taught them from the standard works. Because of their examples I saw with new eyes my own need for improvement. Perhaps many of us set our hearts too much upon worldly treasures. I wonder if we have grown casual or complacent in studying the word and living the doctrine.

What an inspiring story that is. I often wonder why Josiah was such a valiant spirit who responded to the teachings in the book of the law. Why was his response different than that of kings both before and after him? Is there an application in this to you at your young age about prizing the scriptures by reading them, heeding them, covenanting to keep the commandments in them, and then standing by the covenant?

the preaching of the word had a . . . more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, . . . therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God. [Alma 31:5]

I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns. [TSWK, 135]

Sometimes the exact words from the scriptures forcefully answer our prayers. Reading the scriptures also opens our minds and hearts to thoughts prompted by the Spirit. We are much more apt to receive such help if we go to the scriptures seeking, desiring, and asking.

Revelation came over and over again to Joseph Smith as he read the scriptures and asked inspired questions. We all know that we have that glorious First Vision as a result of this 14-year-old boy studying the scriptures and asking an important question. He needed to know which church was true, and he clung to the promise in James that the Lord would answer those who sincerely ask Him. Did you also know that section 76 came as Joseph pondered the writings of the Gospel of John about the salvation of men? The vision of the degrees of glory opened to his view. In fact, one LDS scholar has calculated that

Each of us is entitled to personal revelation. The scriptures may be our most profound source for this. A professor at BYU told this story of a woman being guided by the Spirit through her study of the scriptures. The professor said:

Likewise, the words of the Lord have blessed me in my Church service. When I was first called to be the Young Women president, I went to the scriptures seeking. I sought comfort and guidance in my feelings of inadequacy and being overwhelmed by a responsibility that dwarfed my limited capacity. The scripture stories of prophets and leaders who felt inadequate in their callings brought peace and taught me that the Lord magnifies those whom He calls.

One of the great blessings we have as members of the Church is modern-day scripture, which gives additional witness that Jesus is the Christ and restores a fullness of the doctrines of His gospel. Each of our latter-day prophets has encouraged us to read the Book of Mormon and to live by its precepts with the promise that great blessings will come into our lives.

I think by now we all know that in August President Gordon B. Hinckley asked every member of the Church to read or reread the Book of Mormon by the end of this celebratory year. Why do you think our prophet has asked us to do this? Why? Each of us should ask ourselves: What do I need to learn? How do I need to improve? Where do I need help? We will find personal reasons and needs for this reading of the Book of Mormon. Then President Hinckley promised us that

The Spirit of the Lord accompanies the Book of Mormon. My friends Wilford and Kathleen Andersen, who served as mission presidents in Guadalajara, Mexico, literally saw the spirit of the Book of Mormon at work. Sister Andersen felt impressed during the final year of their mission to educate her three sons at home rather than in a public school. However, she needed help in teaching them Spanish. She prayed to find a suitable tutor. She was led to Irma Encinas, who had been a teacher for 20 years and had just recently moved into this new city. Irma Encinas came twice a week to work with the boys.

Three weeks into the school year, Sister Andersen realized that she had hired someone who might be interested in learning more about our Church. So she told her about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Sister Andersen then decided to have the Spanish curriculum for her boys be the Book of Mormon. The boys each read out loud in Spanish from the scriptures on every visit. Then the teacher was instructed to ask them questions about the reading, and the boys had to answer her in Spanish. While the boys were learning Spanish, Irma Encinas was learning about the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon people looked forward to Him with hope in His Redemption, and they looked back upon His exemplary life and redeeming death with hope in His Atonement. Long before Christ was born, Jacob wrote:

For just as surely as this director [the Liahona] did bring our fathers, by following its course, to the promised land, shall the words of Christ, if we follow their course, carry us beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise. [Alma 37:45]

In More Than Honey, Attica Boa's striking close-up photography helps visualize a story whose urgency needs no amplification: With global honeybee populations threatened, the world's food supply could be seriously endangered. Kino Lorber hide caption

Trucked by the millions across countries and continents in the service of massive fruit-farming operations, honeybees are as essential to the global economy and the food chain as they are to the production of honey. Kino Lorber hide caption

There's no single reason for the decline of bees, suggests More Than Honey director Markus Imhoof, whose family has kept the honey-producing apians for generations. The filmmaker hails from the Swiss Alps, where flowers, fruit, honey and bees exist in synchrony, with only low-tech human intervention. Even there, however, diseases and parasites are devastating hives.

Things are worse in China, where Mao's war on birds shattered the natural order, and in the U.S., where industrial-scale beekeeping and the indiscriminate use of pesticides has fueled the phenomenon known as "colony collapse."

The film's first stop is California, which produces as much as 90 percent of the world's almonds. The trees require the ministrations of untold numbers of bees, whose hives are trucked to the orchards by the hundreds on huge flatbeds, by companies whose insects also pollinate other crops throughout the country. The stresses of travel kill bees, sometimes by the millions. Fungicides and varroa mites also undermine colony health.

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