This film highlights why ‘honey’ makes the world go round
Woking LA21, with the support of Woking Borough Council, will be hosting a free screening of the film ‘More Than Honey’in the Council Chamber, Civic Offices, Gloucester Square, on Monday 9 December at 7pm.
The feature length film (97 minutes) brings sharply into focus the current bee crisis where numerous colonies of bees have been decimated throughout the world with 50% to 90% of bees having disappeared over the past 15 years. With one in three mouthfuls of the food we eat and 80% of plant species dependent on pollination, the honey bee is as indispensable to the economy as it is to man’s survival.
Narrated by British film legend, John Hurt, and directed by Oscar nominated Markus Imhoof(winner of numerous best documentary awards across international film festivals), More Than Honey is a provocative, yet touching, tale of what may happen if bees become extinct.
Hilary Griffiths, spokesperson for Woking LA21, said: “We are planning to add a local element to the evening by hosting a brief, post-film discussion, as well as providing an update on LA21’s plans for local biodiversity enhancement. Also in attendance will be founder member and bee keeping expert at Black Horse Apiaries in Hook Heath, John Hamer, who will be on hand to answer any questions.”
The film will be screened for free without a licence charge, following negotiations between the Guildford Woking and Waverley branch of the Friends of the Earth group and the distributors. The screening forms part of Friends of the Earth’s ‘Bee Cause’ Campaign, which aims to encourage the Government to start a National Pollinator Review.
Doors for the free screening will open at 6.45pm ready for a prompt 7pm start; places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.
For more information about the film, visit www.morethanhoney.co.uk. For more information email hilarygriffiths@hotmail.com
Welcome to Woking Environment Action! 
NOT JUST BEES – this year’s Monarch butterfly migration numbers are way down:
The Year the Monarch Didn’t Appear
ON the first of November, when Mexicans celebrate a holiday called the Day of the Dead, some also celebrate the millions of monarch butterflies that, without fail, fly to the mountainous fir forests of central Mexico on that day. They are believed to be souls of the dead, returned.
This year, for or the first time in memory, the monarch butterflies didn’t come, at least not on the Day of the Dead. They began to straggle in a week later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year’s low of 60 million now seems great compared with the fewer than three million that have shown up so far this year. Some experts fear that the spectacular migration could be near collapse.
“It does not look good,” said Lincoln P. Brower, a monarch expert at Sweet Briar College.
It is only the latest bad news about the dramatic decline of insect populations.
Another insect in serious trouble is the wild bee, which has thousands of species. Nicotine-based pesticides called neonicotinoids are implicated in their decline, but even if they were no longer used, experts say, bees, monarchs and many other species of insect would still be in serious trouble.
That’s because of another major factor that has not been widely recognized: the precipitous loss of native vegetation across the United States.
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