Haagen-Dazs was front and center once again in a news story about colony collapse disorder, a mysterious ailment that is threatening bee hives and, in turn, the crops the bees pollinate. The opening interview on the NBC Nightly News piece was with Haagen-Dazs' spokeswoman Katty Pien standing in front of a grocery freezer full of the ice cream.

"More than 40 percent of the all-natural flavors that Haagen-Dazs has contain ingredients that are dependent upon honeybee pollination. For example, the Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream has almonds that are 100 percent pollinated by honeybees," Pien stated.

The story, with Anne Thompson reporting, then turned to farmers and scientists, who testified before Congress about their CCD concerns. Toward the end of the story, the camera was pointed at UC Davis bee researcher Sue Cobey in the field with bee hives.

"Your choices may become slimmer or the quality of the fruit may become smaller, misshapen, because it's not properly pollinated. We're going to have to be more tolerant of--as consumers of things like this or willing to pay a much higher price," she said.

The photo shows NBC's Houston Hall behind the camera. He interviewed and shot the video of Sue Cobey in Davis.

Magazine article reading online is growing in popularity. According to Marketing Analytics, authoritative research firms (Nielsen and Mediamark Research Inc.) found that an average of 83 percent of visitors to the Web sites of 23 large-circulation monthly magazines access those magazines’ content solely online.

That may be true, but some things are lost in the online posting. One is a new gimic from the current issue of Newsweek magazine. Häagen-Dazs is running an ad embedded with flower seeds that can sprout as the linen-based paper decomposes, according to a brief in the Merced Sun-Star. The connection? The ad is part of a company effort to combat colony collaspe disorder of bees. As reported in this blog in February, the ice cream maker provided $250,000 for colony collaspe disorder research to UC Davis and Pennsylvania State University, and started a "Häagen-Dazs Loves Honey Bees” Web site at www.helpthehoneybees.com.

Now Newsweek readers can tear the Häagen-Dazs ad from the magazine and plant it in their backyards to grow wildflowers that make nectar for bees. But the online readers are out of luck.