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<div class="contentBlockHeadline">Short film follows epic journey of bees</div>
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<div class="contentBlockByline">By Dennis Pollock / The Fresno Bee</div>
<div class="contentBlockDate">04/18/08 22:30:12</div>
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Visitors to a film festival in Fresno this weekend can check out a new short film that looks at the "gypsy lifestyle" of beekeepers who flock to California's Central Valley to pollinate almonds.<p/>It's an insightful look at something much of us in the Valley only see from a distance -- not from the perspective of people loading hives on trucks in Minnesota and elsewhere to make the annual pilgrimage to the almond orchards.<p/>The 25-minute "Pollen Nation" is part of a block of short films to be shown from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. today at the Tower Theatre as part of the 2008 Fresno Film Festival. Admission is $8 for adults and students, $10 for others. Details: (559) 227-8183.<p/>It's also available for purchase by visiting www. pollennationthemovie.com. The Web site also allows you to check out a trailer for the film.<p/>"Pollen Nation" offers no answers to the health plight of the bees and beekeepers' battles with colony-collapse disorder. Nor is it a heavy-handed environmentalist polemic.<p/>But it does raise the question of what happens when the ways of agriculture -- growing almonds on huge plots of land as a "monoculture" with no other pollinators and little other foliage around -- clash with nature's needs for honeybees and the bees' need for year-round forage.<p/>"God didn't make bees to run all over the country like this," said beekeeper David Hackenberg, who runs bees up and down the East Coast from Florida to Maine, and also occasionally out to California's almonds.<p/>His remarks pinpointed the artificial way nature is controlled and the stresses it can place on the bees.<p/>But if the hives didn't come to California, many almonds would not develop.<p/>The hives come, the bees pollinate and the bees move on.<p/>The film was co-produced and co-directed by Singeli Agnew and Joshua Fisher, who both have also worked for Frontline World, which is linked to the Public Broadcasting Service program. They would like PBS to pick up "Pollen Nation" for broadcast nationwide.<p/>Fisher studied economics, started a record label and taught at a university in Kazakhstan before becoming a filmmaker. He's an Oakland resident, and his first film, "Jubilee," told the story of a vanishing small town in South Dakota.<p/>Agnew, who grew up on a sheep ranch in Montana and now lives in the Bay Area, worked as a photographer and writer for seven years in New Mexico before becoming a filmmaker.<p/>Agnew said a meeting with a man who kept bees in his living room in San Francisco sparked her interest in bees.<p/>"It was obvious it was a great story, but I didn't realize the scale and importance until I looked into it," she said.<p/>Some $15 billion worth of food crops are pollinated by honeybees every year. One of every three bites of food we eat is dependent on pollination.<p/>Agnew said she sought to make the film "so that it spoke to people who do not see themselves as environmentalists. I hate labels."<p/>The filmmakers call the bees "the overlooked workers in American agriculture."<p/>The film follows the journey of one commercial beekeeper, Jeff Anderson, who maintains homes in Oakdale as well as Eagle Bend, Minn. Like many of the Valley's beekeepers, his is a multigenerational, family business.<p/>At one point, a beekeeper says, "You've seen The Terminator. You may have hired an exterminator. Now, you've met the pollinator."<p/>Indeed.<p/>And the film worked on many levels.<p/><b>Bee-ing friendly on Earth Day</b><p/>Celebrate Earth Day by planting a bee-friendly garden, suggests University of California Davis Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen.<p/>"Native plants that are important sources of nectar in California include the sages, wild buckwheat and the Christmas berry," Mussen says. Honeybees are especially attracted to a diverse garden, so he suggests planting 10 or more species of plants that bees love.<p/>"Be sure that their foraging environment isn't contaminated with industrial pollutants, residues of agricultural pesticides or hydrocarbon emissions from vehicles," he adds. Also, don't select plants for your garden that are toxic to honeybees.<p/>They include the California buckeye, California corn lily, death camas and locoweeds. <p/>"Alkaloids in California buckeye pollen contaminate the nectar and cause the death or deformity of young bees, rendering them unable to walk or fly," Mussen says.<p/><b>Speaking of blossoms ...</b><p/>A California Country television episode featuring the Fresno County Blossom Trail is set to air statewide next week. It will appear on Friday at 12:30 p.m. on KSEE, Channel 24.<p/>The May issue of Motor Trend magazine also includes shots on the Blossom Trail.</div>
<div class="contentBlockTail"><i>The reporter can be reached at
dpollock@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6364.
</i></div>
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