It is early spring; a beekeeper opens one of his hives. Except for a handful of dead honeybees, the box is empty. Since 2002 bee mortality rates have doubled all over the Northern hemisphere. 'Handful of bees' shows three Dutch beekeepers who try to prevent the bees from becoming extinct. One tries to achieve this through research, the other through selection for resistance to varroa mites and the third through organic beekeeping. An observational documentary containing intriguing images of bees in the hive, in the open air and during artificial insemination, about the relationship between bees and mans desire to control nature.