Super Sweet Research

Without honey bees to pollinate strawberry, raspberry, almond and other crops, the folks at Häagen-Dazs would be unable to make forty percent of their sixty ice cream flavors. Worrisome, to say the least. And so the company has launched its newest flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee, to celebrate the mighty honey bee and also to educate the public about honey bee health issues.

Being a meticulous researcher, I had to check it out.

Here’s the scoop: it is good. Really, really good. According to the (very astute) Burns children, “It tastes like honey.”

Häagen-Dazs is using funds from the sale of Vanilla Honey Bee to fund research programs at the University of California, Davis and the Pennsylvania State University. They’ve also created a kid-friendly website to educate the public about honey bees and their importance to our food supply.

See? Sometimes my work is painful (stinging myself with a honey bee, for example), and other times it is oh-so-super sweet.