Colony collapse disorder: Ice cream at risk?
Posted: Feb 18th 2008 8:15AM by Bethany Sanders
Filed under: Food and Nutrition, General Health, Sustainable Community

Never mind that honeybees are disappearing at an alarming rate. Never mind that there's no clear answer why. Never mind that if they disappear altogether, so will at least a third of our food supply that depends on bees for pollination. Never mind all of that. The mysterious bee disappearance could lead to a shortage of ice cream, people. And that is a true emergency, in my book.

Haagen-Daz, which uses all natural ingredients, says that the honeybee crisis is having a big impact on their business. Forty percent of their flavors use ingredients that are dependent on bees, including strawberry, toasted pecan, and banana split. Haagen-Daz says that they may have to change their flavor offerings in the future, and have recently donated a large chunk of money toward researching colony collapse disorder. They're also putting out a new flavor this spring, Vanilla Honey Bee, that will raise money to put toward research as well.

In all seriousness, the bee issue is a serious one. Some research has pointed toward a pathogen or virus as the cause, but until researchers can pinpoint and reverse the problem, the bees remain at risk.

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