This past week in Canada, the Honey Nut Cheerios finally addressed a problem that has plagued us for many years now and that’s the decline in the bee population. This was done by the company hiding Buzz the bee and asking consumers “Where’s Buzz?”. The campaign features interactive videos and a new ad that makes the call for people to “help our friends the bees.” The brand also decided to remove Buzz from all packaging for a limited time to stress how important this issue is.

"This is the first time in the brand's history that we've taken 'Buzz' off the box," said Emma Eriksson, director of Marketing for General Mills Canada. "One-third of the foods we depend on for our survival are made possible by the natural pollination work that bees provide. With ongoing losses in bee populations being reported across Canada, we wanted to leverage our packaging to draw attention to this important cause and issue a call to action to Canadians to help plant 35 million wildflowers—one for every person in Canada."

The brand is also giving away free wildflower seeds to everyone in Canada so that their goal of planting the 35 million wildflowers can be achieved.

"General Mills' decision to draw attention to the issue of declining bee populations marks the continuation of its commitment to purpose-based marketing, which means brands will go beyond traditional statements such as product benefit in order to align with what's really important to consumers," says Cossette chief creative officer Peter Ignazi. "By taking the bold step of removing a well-established brand symbol from its packaging, General Mills is further challenging marketing's conventional thinking to underscore its point."

This is an extremely important and interesting campaign and hopefully, it’s brought to the United States so that we can also participate in the cause.

Because of the overuse of pesticides, our bee population has declined drastically in the past couple of years and this raises a gigantic red flag for everyone.Because of the ongoing use of pesticides many bees have been known to abandon their hives thus making them vulnerable to harsh environments.

Colony collapse disorder was first observed in 2006. Affected colonies have experienced mortality rates as high as 90 percent. Previous research has also identified other potential causes, including pathogens, parasites and bee genetics.

If you see any beehives in your home please, do not call pest control but rather call a bee keeper and they will more than gladly help with the safe removal of the hive.However, beekeepers will only remove honeybees. To make sure that the bees you are having problem with are in fact honeybees, go to this website that helps identify all different types of bees before you call your local beekeeper. http://www.indianahoney.org/Honeybee-Swarms.cfm

Here is the page where you can also find your local beekeeper in any state or territory of the Unites States.

http://www.bees-on-the-net.com/home-page/