Where my bees at?
July 30, 2008 7:04 PM   Subscribe

Häagen-Dazs wants you to know they are concerned about the disappearance of honeybees through a nice little flashed website. But we all know that the real reason our bees are disappearing is because of that damned hip hop music.
posted by Hands of Manos (29 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Actually, Doctor Who explained this in a recent episode: it's because the bees are going home...
posted by ZachsMind at 7:08 PM on July 30, 2008 [2 favorites]


well, in that case, it's nice of the hippies to offer to make a home for the bees in their hair...
posted by jonmc at 7:10 PM on July 30, 2008


That is adorable. Probably not very useful, but, damn... adorable.
posted by you're a kitty! at 7:18 PM on July 30, 2008


The bee dance vid was choreographed and directed by the amazingly clever Trish Sie, who created OK Go's infamous treadmill and back yard dance vids. She makes much happy.
posted by eatyourlunch at 7:44 PM on July 30, 2008


I like DJ Honey's vest and tie combo
posted by Large Marge at 7:58 PM on July 30, 2008


It's a good effort to educate people about bees that will hopefully lead to just a little more awareness about how dependent we are on nature. Surprised it didn't come from Ben & Jerry's.
posted by gallois at 8:19 PM on July 30, 2008


That was very amusing, thanks!
posted by MaryDellamorte at 8:21 PM on July 30, 2008


OMG! HONEY BEES ARE DISAPPEARING!

Now we're all going to commit mass suicide. Unless you eat Haagen Dasz instead of Tiramisu.
posted by qvantamon at 8:33 PM on July 30, 2008


Really? Nobody else thinks this is a totally transparent example of "OK guys, what can we do that's really viral but doesn't totally make us look like we're just trying to get brand attention?"
posted by DarlingBri at 9:08 PM on July 30, 2008


Taking inspiration from Ben & Jerry, Haagen-Dazs is introducing a new ice cream that actually features the waxy flavor of its products: Honeycombs 'n' Honeycomb®
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:16 PM on July 30, 2008


Got to the section where you choose your bee's hairstyle, suddenly remembered that stinger between my toes that time, with the venom sac still attatched, pumping and pumping.
posted by longsleeves at 9:53 PM on July 30, 2008


But we all know that the real reason our bees are disappearing is because of that damned hip hop music.
posted by neuron at 9:58 PM on July 30, 2008


Really? Nobody else thinks this is a totally transparent example of "OK guys, what can we do that's really viral but doesn't totally make us look like we're just trying to get brand attention?"

They are donating money to research- which is something I suppose.

Monsanto, DuPont and Bayer? Possibly not- but once all agriculture is licensed to them in some way, and all crops are gene spliced with a pig's DNA the bee will no longer be necessary- So win win win really.
posted by mattoxic at 10:07 PM on July 30, 2008


MC Buzz B surely?
posted by fallingbadgers at 10:43 PM on July 30, 2008


Don't be a drone for honey blue.
posted by syzygy at 10:47 PM on July 30, 2008


Vapid, pretty, vapid.

If you want an answer, it's right here (unhyperlinkable, showing a commitment to really making this information available) menu->honey bee crisis->the irreplacable bee->paragraph 2
    Bees are responsible for 80 percent of the country's pollination services
Hello? Services? Surely we can just outsource services, right?

The deconstruction of symbiotic ecosystems and industrialised farming methdologies are the cause. The solution is not as profitable, however, so the answer will be found in either 'illegal' immigrants with paintbrushes performing 'pollination services' or almonds as a status symbol of the super rich.

I found it pretty freaky when I discovered bees are driven around by the shipping containerload to pollinate different farms and areas. Industrial farming: here to fit the square peg in the round hole.
posted by davemee at 12:13 AM on July 31, 2008


Wow, I didn't know almonds grew on trees. Thanks Haagen-Dazs!
posted by minifigs at 12:55 AM on July 31, 2008


minifigs, when you declare that "The deconstruction of symbiotic ecosystems and (the employment of) industrialised farming methdologies (sic) are the cause" of the recent phenomenon of colony collapse disorder, are you basing that on any science?

Also, Beekeepers have always sought ways to move their bees from one crop to the next, to maximize their return on their investment. Although the practice dates back to the turn of the century, when beehives were shipped by rail, migratory beekeeping came into its own in the United States with the completion of the Interstate highway system and the availability of reliable, high-speed trucks. What is so "freaky" there?
posted by longsleeves at 1:11 AM on July 31, 2008


I only ask beacuse according to the "Irreplacable bee" section of the website that you cite, nobody yet knows what the mechanism behind CCD is.
posted by longsleeves at 1:18 AM on July 31, 2008


longsleeves: That was me, not minifigs. Leave him alone!

What's freaky about that is that it's heavily predicated on petrochemicals. You don't have petrochemicals, the bees don't move. The bees don't move, you don't get almonds. You really don't see something fundamentally fragile and artificial there? A forced, unnatural repurposing of otherwise natural processes?

Or are petrochemicals something that seasonally appear on trees, and the bees used to harvest them to drive their own trucks before the turn of the century and we started helping them out with bigger trucks?
posted by davemee at 1:42 AM on July 31, 2008


Sorry, minifigs.

davemee: How is using bees to polinate flowers "repurposing"?

As to your second paragraph, the answer is no.

Oh, wait.... was that sarcasm?
posted by longsleeves at 2:22 AM on July 31, 2008


Davemee, our whole society and agricultural system is heavily predicated on petrochemicals. Moving bees is a lot of bang for your buck, or gallon as the case may be.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:06 AM on July 31, 2008


But we all know that the real reason our bees are disappearing is because of that damned hip hop music Dane Cook, Master Chief, and Jerry Seinfeld.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:00 AM on July 31, 2008


Driving them around rather than allowing them to establish colonies is strikes me as crazy. Am I missing something, but wouldn't localised colonies make more sense? Or is this symptomatic of the consolidation of farming over the last century?

The act of pollination is not repurposing per se, but the mechanism by which it is achieved is; creating ad-hoc and temporary settlements of bees which do not, or are not permitted to, occur autonomously.

I was being sarcastic in the 2nd paragraph, I apologise; Also, I'm hoping you can forgive my missing of a letter when typing methodologies in the same spirit.
posted by davemee at 4:09 AM on July 31, 2008


A friend has had a colony for a few years. It's not that difficult. Interestingly, he routinely feeds them sugar, of all things. I thought they got that from nectar. There's no free honey.
posted by AppleSeed at 5:13 AM on July 31, 2008


You only feed bees sugar water during times when there is low nectar (drought, bad heat wave) or early in the spring to stimulate the queen to lay eggs.
posted by mania at 6:21 AM on July 31, 2008


Davemee, from what little I know of beekeeping (talking to the honey guy at the farmer's market for 5 minutes), if you wanted to keep hives in the same place year round, it would have to be somewhere with a wide variety of flowering plants that all bloom at different times of year. You'd have to scatter your hives over many acres, and you'd have horrific die off in the winter in most states. Alternatively, you can have hives all over the country, and move them south in the winter. Also, the beekeeper said he's had to move his hives more often than 20 years ago because of the vastly diminishing acreage of wildflowers.

So basically hive movement sounds like a result of crop monoculture and decreased wild habitat.
posted by BrotherCaine at 7:08 AM on July 31, 2008


I've come to like bees. I just found a good sized nest of bumblebees in my back yard, and I've decided to take a live and let live approach to their existence. The way I figure it, they were there long enough to build the nest and haven't disturbed me, so as long as I don't go riling them up, we should be able to peacefully co-exist. Plus, I like watching their fat little drones clumsily fly around the garden and the hummingbird feeders.

Wasps, on the other hand, run afoul my eternal war doctrine. Unfortunately they are tenacious fighters and can be hard to kill.
posted by quin at 10:37 AM on July 31, 2008 [3 favorites]


Moving hives to pollinate crops is hardly a modern phenomenon. Evidence from the third century BCE indicates the Egyptians did as much--on donkeys:
http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/beekeeping.htm#rem10

It's certainly not necessary to move them, and nearly every hobbyist or "sideliner" beekeeper leaves them in place year round, even up north in Canada. On the other hand, professional beekeepers are fairly well compelled to provide pollination services by the economics of beekeeping. They wait until night, put the hives (which are basically tall, sectioned, wooden boxes) on a truck, and drive them out to the orchard or wherever and unload them, then come back in a couple weeks and do the reverse. The beekeeper makes a few bucks and the farmer gets a little better yield due to the abundance of pollinators. It's hardly a crime against nature--exactly the opposite. It's a natural, chemical- and GMO-free way to increase food production.

Just to cover the other side of the issue, there are a few minor negatives. Moving hives around means potentially accelerating the spread of bee problems like africanized bees and parasites and diseases. It stresses the bees a little. It also means your bees might get hit with a pesticide, though this is explicitly covered in the pollination contract. All in all, though, it's good for everyone, including the bees who get a near-constant supply of blooming flowers out of the deal.
posted by Nahum Tate at 5:10 PM on July 31, 2008 [2 favorites]


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