A California biologist who is conducting a kind of bee-census across the U.S. and Canada called the Great Sunflower Project is looking for volunteer field workers.

Gretchen LeBuhn, an associate professor at San Francisco State University with a fascination for bees, is studying bee colony collapse and an apparent decline in honey bee populations across North America, and for a project that big, she says, she needs help.

LeBuhn’s volunteers are required only to plant a sunflower in their yard and observe the nature and behavior of the bees the pollen-rich plants attract. Those signing up get a free packet of sunflower seeds along with instructions for proper bee monitoring.

She told the Orange County Register newspaper in an interview that she already has some 60,000 helpers but needs more.

“Sunflowers are a nice, big canvas,” LeBuhn told the Register. “You can look at bees that come and stay there a little while. In watching them, you really learn about whats out there.”

LeBuhn, who has also been profiled in the San Franciso Examiner and Sunset magazine, posts regular updates on the project on her Web site (”The Buzz: Pollinator Week!”) and will ultimately collect all the data for her study.

But in the meantime, she seems to be quite, um, happy just watching the little black and gold buzzers.

“I sort of think bees are magical,” LeBuhn told the Register. “I like sitting out here with my cup of coffee for 20 minutes, watching bees.”

Ice cream seller Haagen-Dazs is investing a half-million dollars to save the honeybees -- and to save us from a future of feeding on gruel. 

Honeybees, which 60 Minutes called the "unsung heroes of the food chain," are threatened in many parts of the world, putting food supplies in danger.

Bees pollenate one-third of all of the natural foods we eat. Just imagine a world without nuts, fruits, vegetables, flowers and even meat and milk from cattle that eat bee-pollenated alfalfa.

"Without bees and other pollinators, the things we that would be left with are corn, rice and wheat," Diana Cox-Foster, an entomology professor at Pennsylvania State University, said in this video created for Haagen-Dazs.

"If we don't have them, we're going to be eating gruel," said Maryann Frazier, a senior extension associate in Penn State's entomology department.

Billions of bees in the United States and Europe have disappeared. Scientists in the United States say that colony collapse disorder, a mysterious syndrome , has wiped out more than a third of American hives in 2008 on top of similar losses in 2007.

Haagen-Dazs just gave a second $250,000 donation to honeybee researchers at Penn State and the University of California, Davis.

The company is running a public information campaign at helpthehoneybees.com and says federal funding is needed to tackle the issue.  

Part of the donation from the company, which sells "bee-built" flavors like Vanilla Honey Bee, will be used to create Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven - a one-half acre bee-friendly demonstration garden coordinated by the California Center for Urban Horticulture.

(Photo: Provided by Haagen-Dazs)