Catch the buzz on bees April 7

The Charleston Area Beekeepers Association (CABA) will hold the second annual Charleston Honey and Bee Expo on Sunday, April 7 in Mount Pleasant at Cinebarre Theater, 963 Houston-Northcutt Blvd. Last April the group hosted the first “bee” event in the Lowcountry. The expo is a fun, free, family-friendly event. Beekeepers will answer questions, share educational information, and sell their local honey; there will be live bees and educational displays, presentations, children’s games/crafts, free honey-tasting and new honey-cotton-candy for sale.

There will be two bee-related movies; showtimes at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. (Ticket admission is $5 donation to CABA.)

• “Colony” - an intimate look from the perspective of a beekeeping family battling Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the unexplained phenomenon resulting in mass exodus of millions of bees from their hives and threatens not only the livelihood of beekeepers worldwide; but also the world’s food supply.

“We admire some documentaries for their artistry and others for their urgency. Rarely do we see a film that combines both those qualities as impressively as this debut by directors Carter Gunn and Ross McDonnell … drawing us into the world of bees and causing us to root for their survival as much as our own.” - Thom Powers, Toronto International Film Festival

• “Silence of the Bees” - is the riveting story of the ongoing investigation to identify what is killing the honeybee. Viewers are transported to high-tech labs and locations around the world where scientists race to uncover clues even deep inside honeybee colonies.

CABA is a non-profit organization with members who are beekeepers that manage one or a few hives.