Ice Cream Company makes a "sweet" offer to help Honey Bees

Haagen Dazs Ice Cream pledges cash for Tweets to help Honey Bees

Bee keepers know the challenges facing the honey bee population-and farmers know the importance of the bee population to crops and food production. Green Happenings H2O applauds the outreach efforts of Haggan Dazs and the company's use of Twitter to drive global awareness. 


Tweets which include the specified # message (#HelpHoneyBees) are incentivized with a -$1.00 per Tweet/up to 1000 per day) pledge from the Ice Cream maker. The campaign ends on 11/11. The awareness- to- dollars campaign pledges money which will be given to institutions researching the cause of the colony collapse crisis. 


Additionally, Haggan Dazs has set up a great site interactive and educational site.

Find out more: http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/#crisis Here are some BEE facts from the Haaggen-Daza site:

• Over the last three winters more than 1 in 3 bee colonies has died nationwide, affecting many of our favorite nuts, fruits and berries –

Researchers believe there are many causes for the decline in the bee population including:

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) –
Symptoms were reported by more than 35 states across the continental United States and in two provinces in Canada, Belgium and Spain Varroa Mites – Inadvertently introduced into the United States in 1987, these tiny, brown parasitic relatives of ticks feed exclusively on honey bees Viruses – Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) is highly associated with CCD Chemical Exposure – Pollen in CCD-affected hives show levels of 45 different types of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides Lack of Nutrition – Limited supply of good pollen and nectar supplies due to drought has greatly impacted honey beesIce cream production is dependent upon honey bees for alfalfa pollination, a key ingredient in milk production. Dairy cows rely on alfalfa for feed; without the cows we would not have milk, and without milk we would not have ice cream Honey Bee and Food Supply Agriculture Facts

• One of every three bites the average American eats is directly attributed to honey bee pollination.
• Honey bees are responsible for the pollination of more than 100 crops, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, providing 80 percent of the country’s pollination service
• The honey bee is responsible for pollinating $15 billion in agricultural crops each year. The California almond crop alone uses 1.3 million colonies of bees for pollination, approximately one half of all the honey bees in the United States
• Honey bees, the unsung heroes of food production, dance far and wide for our favorite fruits, nuts and berries
• Honey bees are the only insect that produce food for humans, flying approximately 15 mph and visiting about 50-100 flowers in each pollination trip
• When a honey bee returns to the hive, it gives out samples of the flower’s nectar to its hive mates.
• The principal form of communication among honey bees is through chemicals called pheromones
• A single bee cannot make honey, it takes a whole hive
• An average worker bee will only make 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime
• One honey bee colony can produce 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year
• To produce 1 pound of honey, honey bees must visit 2 million flowers and fly 55,000 miles

The A, Bee, C’s of Honey Bees Preceding humans by millions of years, the oldest bee fossil dates back more than 100 million years.

• Flowering plants appeared about 65 million years ago
• Humans have been associated with honey bees since the era of cave men, and ancient societies in Egypt and Israel kept bee colonies for honey production
• Apis mellifera, a honey bee’s scientific name, literally means “the honey-carrying bee”, but in actuality bees carry pollen on their hind legs in an area know as a pollen basket or corbicula
• A queen bee can live for 2-5 years, a worker bee 1-4 months and a drone 40-50 days