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In addition to providing us with delicious honey, bees are essential for other reasons. “Bees’ greatest contribution to mankind is pollination,” says Frank Blanchard, a South Carolina beekeeper for more than 35 years. “Anyone with a flower or vegetable garden knows that you get bigger, tastier and better crop if you keep bees in your backyard, Blanchard continues. “And it isn’t just local gardens, either. Bees pollinate over 80 percent of America’s fruits and vegetables. The entire California almond crop, for example, is dependent on honeybee pollination. No bees, no almonds.”

Honeybees are so important that across America various organizations, both public and private, are encouraging people to become hobby beekeepers through educational programs and free equipment. One such organization is the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, which runs a highly successful “Bee-ginner’s Beekeeping” course.

Says New Jersey State Apiarist Tim Schuler: “We have more than 350 people signed up for our course this year, and we are hoping that all these new beekeepers will add to our N.J. bee diversity.

“It’s shocking, but in the 1940s America had upwards of 5 million bee hives; now we have half that,” Schuler continues. “As we become less rural and more and more urban, we are squeezing wildlife out. Honeybees are essential because they pollinate the plants eaten by wildlife.”

To find out more about beginner beekeeping information and classes contact your local beekeeper association or state department of agriculture.

In the past few years, beekeepers, especially commercial ones, have reported a mysterious dying off of colonies for no apparent reason, dubbed colony collapse disorder. Schuler is among the researchers trying to find the cause, and hopefully the solution, to CCD. It’s one of the reasons he hopes more Americans will keep their own hives. He stresses that beekeeping can be done anywhere, even in big cities. “In fact, in a city you have large, old shade trees like linden and locust that will yield pounds and pounds of absolutely delicious honey,” Schuler says.

Some private companies are lending a hand to help raise awareness of America’s bee crisis. Haagen-Dazs, for example, has launched the Web site Helpthehoneybees.com and introduced a new Honey Vanilla Bee ice cream to focus consumer attention on the issues. A portion of the sales of their Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream, made with clover honey from North and South Dakota, will be donated for research.

“Honeybee health and sustainable pollination is a major issue facing American agriculture that is threatening our food supply and endangering our natural environment,” says Diana Cox-Foster, Ph.D., a leading CCD researcher at Penn State and Haagen-Dazs Bee Board member.

“Honeybees help to pollinate many of the ingredients like strawberries and apricots that go into 40 percent of Haagen-Dazs flavors,” says Katty Pien, spokesperson for Haagen-Dazs. “In addition, ice cream production is dependent upon honeybees for pollination of alfalfa, 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.”