Honey Bees Dying, Colony Collapse Disorder, Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream Helps Save The Honey Bees

Since I was a young child I was always fascinated with nature and spent as much time outdoors as possible. Now a soon to be "empty nester" I have more time to explore things that I enjoy. Last summer, I began with my love of photography and headed outside with my camera.

I have three beautiful Rose of Sharon bushes that produced an enormous amount of flowers. This is when my obsession of bees and other pollinators began. With camera in hand I moved closer to watch these hard little working bees and was amazed at how hard they really work and how valuable they are for our health and the health of our environment. The more pictures I took the more I wanted to know about bees and pollination. After "googling" and doing research I was stunned to find out that our honey bees were in crisis (Colony Collapse Disorder) as well as our bumblebees.

There is something we can all do to help. It may seem small in the scheme of things with everything else in life to worry about but really it is a red flag about the condition of our environment. This Spring I ask that you plant some bee loving flowers and bushes in your yard. I had no idea when we planted the Rose of Sharon bushes along my walkway to the side entrance to my house that they would attract so many bees. We walked right past them (and through them) all Summer and they were too busy to bother with us but I recommend you plant them away from a main traffic area. Other ways to help is donate to research, buy local honey, hold fundraisers and make people aware. Great companies like Haagen-dazs are donating to research....eat ice cream! (See links below and find out how you too can help.)