Companies Show Concern About Bee Health Farmer Scott Hunter's almond trees are exploding into a froth of pink and white blossoms that will eventually bear more than 1 ton of nuts intended for trail mix, cereals, pastries and ice cream -- but only if each bloom is visited by a honey bee. That's why concern about recent threats to the health of honey bees, whose fertile touch is behind one-third of what we eat, is spreading beyond farms and into boardrooms of companies like Haagen-Dazs and Burt's Bees. Berries, fruits and nuts that lend flavor to about 28 of Haagen-Dazs' ice cream varieties depend on the insects for pollination. The company, owned by Vevey, Switzerland-based Nestle SA, uses 1 million pounds of almonds alone in its products. But in the last year, beekeepers lost 30 percent of the approximately 2.5 million managed colonies to diseases, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture. A recent surge in diseases and pests, from parasitic mites to Colony Collapse Disorder, which leads bees to abandon their hives, has led to the losses. Scientists are still struggling to understand what's behind these problems....