Buzz, The Honey Nut Cheerios Mascot Disappears In Canada. A Very Noble Reason Why

Buzz, the Honey Nut Cheerios mascot, has gone
missing from Canadian cereal boxes for a very
good cause.  

If you've ever eaten Honey Nut Cheerios, or at least seen their ads, you're familar with Buzz.

Depending on your perspective, he's either cute or a bit obnoxious. Buzz if the cartoon bee who banters with celebrity endorsers about how wonderful the cereal is. He's also a big fixture on boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios.

In Canada, however, Buzz has gone missing from the cereal boxes. There's just a white outline where Buzz is supposed to be on the packages.

Buzz's disappearance is for a great cause.

Bees -honeybees, not the cartoon versions - are disappearing from our ecosystem, brought down by insecticides, environmental degradation, development and other factors, mostly caused by humans.

You want lots and lots of bees buzzing around everywhere, because they pollinate crops, which means they actually grow and we can eat them. No bees, no food for us, basically.

People are thus trying to save the bees.

As AdWeek reports:

"'This is the first time in the brand's history 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 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 lant 35 million wildflowers - one for every person in Canada.'"

The effort, details of which you should check out at BringBackThe Bees.ca, has a very good video explaining it more. It's at the bottom of this post.

The video begins with several clips of people rescuing various animals from a series of dire straights. The words, "Helping Is In Our Nature," appears in the clip. In the background, a chorus sings the 1980s Mr. Mister song "Broken Wings," with the lyrics, "Take, these broken wings, and learn to fly again...."

Then we get information about the bee population decline. "The bees need us. Join us in planting 35 million wildflowers."

The Canadian company  Vesey's Seeds, is helping with the effort to distribute flower seeds. I've dealt with Vesey's seeds by the way. Definitely a very good company. It's worth checking out their product line.

The site, BringBackTheBees.ca  has a lot of great information on the bee population, and how to help pollinators. The advice it offers doesn't apply to  just Canada. It's great stuff for us Americans, too.

By the way, you really should plant flowers, wildflowers or any perennial or even annual that attracts honeybees. This isn't just a Canadian problem, but a worldwide one.

Buzz the Honey Nut Cheerios mascot, hasn't disappeared from American cereal boxes yet. But millions of honey bees have disappeared from the American landscape.

It's time we all help to bring them back. We rescue them, and in turn, they'll rescue us by ensuring we continue to have a full and rich food supply.

Here's the BringBackTheBees video: