Free Haagen-Dazs ice cream from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. today (May 12) at participating locations! Use the Haagen-Dazs store locator to call your nearest shop first and see whether they are participating before you go.

Get your free scoop of the ice-cream company's "Bee-built" flavors --- designed to highlight the contributions bees make to the tasty foods we eat and to draw attention to the problem of colony collapse disorder, a problem of unknown origin that has led to significant losses in the pollinating bee population across the United States.

Wondering what this means to you? It could lead to higher food prices down the line. "About one mouthful in three in the diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination," according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

Bees pollinate crops of fruit and nuts, including strawberries, almonds, coconut, pineapple and lemons (not to mention honey they produce themselves). Read more about the Haagen-Dazs Help the Honeybees campaign here.

(photo: Glenn Fawcett/Baltimore Sun)