Have you ever thought about what your favorite childhood cereals would be like without their famous mascots? What would Trix be without Trix Rabbit? What would Frosted Flakes be without Tony the Tiger? What would Lucky Charms be without Lucky the Leprechaun? What would Froot Loops be without Toucan Sam?

What will Cheerios be without Buzz?

I just recently read an article that said General Mills will remove Buzz the Bee from their Honey Nut Cheerios boxes in order to raise awareness of the decline in bee populations. People have mentioned to me before that there has been an ongoing bee crisis, and I have seen different sites talking about needing to save the bees, but I had never really given bees much thought before. It wasn’t until I heard about Buzz that I really took a moment to think about the bees.

As stated on the Cheerios website, “Buzz is missing because there’s something serious going on with the world’s bees. Be populations everywhere have been declining at an alarming rate, and that includes honeybees like Buzz.”

Along with removing Buzz from the cereal boxes, Cheerios launched the #bringbackthebees campaign, in partnership with Veseys Seeds. The campaign had a goal to spread 100 million wildflower seeds around the United States to help bee colonies. They ended up greatly exceeding their goal by giving away 1.5 billion seeds, and they actually had run out of seeds. The distrusted seeds will become wildflowers that provide nutrients needed by pollinators, such as bees.

So why are bees so important? For one thing, they play a large role in pollination. Greenpeace provides many statistics on the subject. According to greenpeace.org, 80 percent of worldwide pollination is executed by bees, and a large quantity of food crops are pollinated by bees. In fact, bees pollinate 70 out of the top 100 food crops. Plus, a lot of healthy foods are pollinated by bees including fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Therefore, a decline of bees and a decline in pollination would have a great impact on the foods many of us eat.

The pollination of foods is only one of many reasons bees are important. So it is no wonder people are talking more and more about the bees.

As I already said, I had never really given bees much thought before. I thought of them as basically being the same as wasps, being afraid getting stung, and wanting nothing to do with them. Never before had I thought about everything bees do for us. I am not about to start wanting bees to be around me all the time, but that does not mean I no longer want bees to exist. It is a good thing action is being taken to help them.