Can pesticides cause bees to collapse and lose their way? PTS documentary "Buzz" reveals the truth on Friday

One third of the world's crops depend on bee pollination, yet since 2006 there have been repeated reports of bees dying in large numbers, a phenomenon scientists call colony collapse disorder (CCD), and pesticides are suspected as the prime culprit; a Public Television Service (PTS) team spent two years, crossing Taiwan, China and the United States, documenting researchers who "tattoo" bees to track them, confirming that bees exposed to pesticides become "disoriented" and die in the wild, and that today's bees may be tomorrow's fate for humanity. This bee documentary "Bee Crazy," the first ever produced by Taiwan, China, deploys rarely seen high-speed photography on the island to film up close bees that beat their wings 230 times per second, premiering on PTS Friday at 10 p.m.

Disappearing Bees Affect One Third of Crops

"Bee Crazy" is the first domestic film to document the disappearance of bees, planned by the PTS International Department at a cost of 4 million, and not only crossed the Pacific but also brought in the renowned director Xiang Youren, who has long worked with the BBC, National Geographic Channel and Discovery Channel.

PTS International Department producer Lai Yanming said that the way bees are used in Taiwan, China is very different from abroad; the disappearance of bees domestically may only mean there is no honey to eat, but other countries rely heavily on bee pollination, and CCD is a major global issue. "This is the first time PTS has made a science film, and we hope to let the public understand major international matters."

But to film the bees, the production team endured plenty of hardship, attacked by black flies in the sweltering heat and stung all over by bees. Xiang Youren laughed and said that at first, seeing farmers open the hives directly without any protective measures, he naively followed along to film and got stung several times, and only later put on full protective gear. "But bees are very clever, they even crawled into my pant legs!" It took a while to overcome the psychological barrier.

Bees beat their wings 230 times per second; fruit flies, which are 80 times smaller than bees, manage only 200 times per second. To film the bees' flight paths, the production unit deployed rarely seen high-speed photography at 3,000 frames per second, but bees are very hard to control, and a mere 5-second shot took the production unit two full days to film.

Compared with the tens of millions the BBC routinely invests, the 4 million budget of "Bee Crazy" was relatively tight, but Xiang Youren said that working with PTS for the first time was very fulfilling. "We film what viewers should see, not what viewers want to see." He said "Bee Crazy" is only a beginning, and pesticides are not absolute evil; rather, the spread of pesticides is partly because the public pursues beautiful fruits and vegetables, so after watching the film, the public should not only worry but also actively change their buying habits and choose food that is not quite so pretty on the outside.