We've heard a lot about bees buzzing off in a mysterious fashion. Last year around 800,000 of the 2.4m hives in the US were wiped out by a strange disease and this year initial losses are reported to be even greater, with 1m beehive deaths.

Those nice people at Häagen-Dazs, the ice cream-making subsidy of General Mills, have come to the rescue of the beleaguered bee with a full-page ad in the latest New Yorker. It tells us the vital role the bees play in pollinating a third of all the food we eat - including the fruits in their ice creams - and it urges readers to visit a website to learn how they can help halt bees' demise.

It may not come as a surprise to learn that one of the ways Häagen-Dazs says you can help the bees is to buy more of its bee-dependent ice creams, including a new flavour appropriately called Vanilla Honey Bee. For each one sold, the company says it will make a donation to support honeybee pollination research programmes at two universities. (The two teams working to find out what is causing colony collapse disorder, and how to eradicate it, have already received their share of the $250,000 donation.)

Häagen-Dazs says the website will soon have a downloadable "lesson plan" to teach us about the problem. "Our goal is to raise awareness of the honeybee issue." In the meantime, keep eating the ice-cream.

Häagen-Dazs isn't the only company to hitch itself to the bee crisis. Burt's Bees, the natural-cosmetics company, has made a grant of an undisclosed sum to create the Honeybee Health Improvement Project, a research task force. It also launched a public service announcement last year that ran in cinemas in the US showing Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie. The audience was urged to visit the company's website to receive a free packet of wild-flower seeds to help create a bee-friendly environment. Nice idea, but it will take a bit more than pretty flowers to fight off the honeybee's adversaries, which include lethal viruses, a blood-sucking mite, fungal parasites and pesticides.

Authorities have seized and destroyed 10,700 kilograms of ice cream which was transported from Greece to Cyprus.

The load was deemed unsuitable for eating because there were temperature control problems in the ship's freezers during transportation.

Consumers are urged to be very careful and not to buy ice cream showing defects on the packaging.

Ice cream that has melted after freezing should not be consumed. It is probably corrupted and unfit for human consumption.

Before consumption, check whether there are any ice crystals on the packaging or on the ice cream itself.

The small crystals are a sign that the ice cream has melted and there is the possibility of the growth of microbes, making it inedible and harmful.

Then came sorbet and sherbet, frozen custard and ice milk, frozen yogurt and gelato.

They're all back for the summer in shops throughout central Ohio, with some new twists.

"Our sales are outstanding. We're over 7 percent up, year-to-date," said Clay Cookerly, Columbus-area co-owner of Graeter's Ice Cream stores.

Cookerly just got two of his 11 stores back on line, reopening one on Main Street in Bexley after six weeks of remodeling and one on Broadway in Grove City that was closed for 14 months because of a fire. He and Jeff Curran, who owns four Cold Stone Creamery outlets in the area, are among those feeling the pinch of high prices for ice-cream ingredients. But they're loath to pass along those higher costs.

"We've been working hard to minimize the impact of inflation on our prices," Curran said. "I haven't changed prices since I opened four years ago."

But challenging times aren't affecting innovation.

Several trends are making themselves felt nationwide and in central Ohio, said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of industry consultant Technomic: "We're on the cusp of the emerging Korean frozen-yogurt trend, made popular by Pinkberry, which is a knockoff of the Korean brand Red Mango. This is the original frozen yogurt, made with a sour, tart flavor unlike what we're accustomed to these days."

Ice-cream cakes and smoothies are among the other frozen treats that are hot now, he said.

Until Pinkberry moves in from the coasts, Curran's Cold Stones have the lead on frozen yogurt and also are expanding offerings in the other two areas.

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Mark Mallen, owner of the Boulder-based Glacier Homemade Ice Cream & Gelato company, recently inked a deal with Shanghai-based Barony Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which plans to franchise the local scoop shop throughout China.

Barony, a developer of more than 20 business and resort hotels in China, plans to open seven locations within one year, Mallen said. Barony is the "master franchisee" and could choose to open stores in places such as China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, he said.

In the fall, Mallen will travel to Shanghai to help set up the first store, which is expected to open early next year.

"Now I just have to learn Mandarin Chinese," Mallen said.

The 8-year-old Glacier, known for selling "artisan" ice cream, has opened a handful of stores, a strategy taken by Mallen to ensure high quality and to keep the home-grown feel intact. When Mallen first heard from Barony last year and took a closer look at the booming market for ice cream in China, he said it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

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INGREDIENTS
1 cup dry adzuki beans
1/3 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 1/2 cups water
 
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 egg yolks
2/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan, combine the azuki beans, 1/3 cup of sugar, lemon juice and water. Bring to a boil, and boil uncovered for 3 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until the beans are very tender. When done, the beans and liquid should amount to 3 cups. If not, add more water to compensate.
Strain the bean mixture through a sieve - I use a wooden paddle for this, and discard the bean skins. Refrigerate for about 2 hours, or until cold.
In a saucepan, combine the milk and cream. Bring to a boil over medium heat. While you wait for that to boil, whisk together the egg yolks and 2/3 cup of sugar in a medium bowl. When the cream and milk come to a boil, ladle about 1/4 cup of the hot liquid into the bowl with the egg yolks, and whisk until smooth. Pour the yolk mixture into the pan with the cream, and cook over low heat until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. This should take about 5 minutes. Do not cook too long, or you will get lumps. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vanilla. Refrigerate until cold.
Once both of the mixtures are cold, stir them together. Pour into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 pints strawberries, hulled and sliced

DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan, stir together the sugar and water. Bring to a boil, and cook for about 10 minutes, or until it becomes syrupy. Mix in the nutmeg and cinnamon, and remove from the heat. Stir in the vanilla. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then pour over sliced strawberries.

INGREDIENTS
2 quarts half-and-half cream
1 cup milk
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs, beaten
4 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 Butterfinger candy bars (2.1 ounces each), chopped

DIRECTIONS
In a large heavy saucepan, heat the cream and milk to 175 degrees F; stir in sugar and salt until dissolved. Whisk a small amount of hot mixture into eggs.
Return all to the pan, whisking constantly. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches at least 160 degrees F and coats the back of a metal spoon.
Remove from the heat. Cool quickly by placing pan in a bowl of ice water; stir for 2 minutes. Stir in vanilla. Press plastic wrap onto surface of custard. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
Stir in candy bars. Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer two-thirds full; freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Refrigerate remaining mixture until ready to freeze. Allow to ripen in ice cream freezer or firm up in the refrigerator freezer for 2-4 hours before serving.

Mommy, ice cream isn't for dinner!" Paris screamed the other night.

It was 6 p.m. and I was driving the kids to Bi-Rite Creamery. Ever since this ice cream shop opened in San Francisco's Mission District, people have been lined up out the door for sumptuous flavors like roasted bananas and honey lavender. But if you go around six--when sensible people are at home eating meat loaf--the wait isn't quite as long. Plus, I'm always looking for an excuse to eat ice cream.

My kids and I go out for ice cream frequently--though typically we have it after dinner. Here are our six favorite places around the Bay Area:

1) Bi-Rite, San Francisco. This Mission District creamery serves up small-batch artisanal ice creams made with organic ingredients; my kids' favorite flavor is malted vanilla with peanut brittle and milk chocolate. Kids' cone: $1.99.

2) Dolce Spazio, Los Gatos. Rich, creamy gelato, or Italian ice cream, is the specialty here. Popular flavors: oreogasmic, snickelicious, and cappuccino chip. Ask for the "unette" $2.45.

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When you're craving an ice-cream fix and a side order of nostalgia, Klavon's Ice Cream Parlor in the Strip District hits the spot.
Klavon's hasn't changed much since owner Ray Klavon's grandparents opened their drug store and soda fountain in 1923.

Customers still sidle up to stools at the store's original 16-foot marble counter or slip into one of the wooden booths against the wall. The store retains its original art-deco details -- a black-and-ochre terrazzo floor, stained-glass windows and frosty light fixtures.

Look close enough, and you'll see evidence of damage left by the legendary 1936 St. Patrick's Day flood.

Some shelves in the back display not-for-sale vintage products of that earlier era. But the wooden candy counter near the entrance offers a fresh selection of candy bars and novelty items -- anyone for candy cigarettes or lipsticks?

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I HAD no intention of making chocolate ice cream. I wanted only the perfect chocolate pudding.For years, when striving to make the ultimate, silky, profoundly fudgy chocolate pudding, I invariably looked to Grandma. Oh, not to either of my Grandmas, who relied on boxed mixes with pallid results. But to an iconic silver-haired Grandma whom I envisioned stirring a pot of farm fresh milk, eggs, cornstarch and melted chocolate to a creamy, intense perfection.

For over a decade, I happily stirred my way through pudding recipes from the most tried-and-true grandmotherly sources I could find: Fannie Farmer and “Joy of Cooking,” Better Homes and Gardens magazine, and spiralbound Junior League cookbooks.

And all the puddings were pretty good jiggly and smooth, with addictive sticky skins that I greedily peeled off and ate while standing in front of the fridge. But none was quite good enough to send me back for more.

At restaurants, chocolate pudding was an entirely different creature, one that had nothing to do with Grandma. Luscious and sexy, with a haunting bittersweet flavor and a texture like a silk camisole, it was less family matron than femme fatale.

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