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Disoriented by stress? Suffering from immune deficiencies possibly caused by exposure to antibiotics, pesticides, radiation or even too much high-fructose corn syrup?

All of these symptoms could suggest a very human response to the toxicity of modern life; and since I've never heard of a syndrome I didn't identify with, I'm already feeling a rash. But there's really no joking about Colony Collapse Disorder, the name given to the sudden and mysterious disappearance of millions of honeybees from their hives. The actual causes still a riddle, CCD has become a national emergency, since the little honey makers are responsible for pollinating up to a third of all the food we eat. (It becomes even more of an emergency in the wake of a growing global food crisis.)

Meanwhile, as more and more advertisers attempt to establish their environmental bona fides in the form of some eco-connection, the honey-dependent people at Häagen-Dazs ice cream could not have embraced a more genuine and authentic cause. It's perfect: Häagen-Dazs, which is owned by General Mills, said bees are responsible for 40 percent of its 60 flavors, including strawberry, toasted pecan and the intensely creamy banana split.

Created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the "Häagen-Dazs loves honey bees" campaign is a natural, and a master stroke. Well, mostly.

The TV spot rates a 10, and the print is great, too. But the look of the Web site (www. helpthehoneybees.com) strikes me as disingenuous -- a prettified, artificially glowy setting suggesting a cross between the sun-lit, pre-verbal weirdness of the Teletubbies and the cozy landscapes of kitschy artist Thomas Kinkade. There's no environmental threat here, and by the time the animated bee drops dead at the end of the intro, most users will have moved on anyway.

But first, the TV spot. Thankfully, it avoids the anthropomorphic cutesiness of Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie. No bees were given first names or briefcases or expected to go to college. Rather, it's a grand (if mini) opera, a clever and beautifully staged narrative about the plight of the honeybee, featuring a theatrical showstopper of a red flower that opens expressively to its would-be pollinator. A tragic duet, the story ends in unrequited pollination: The bee isn't able to close the deal, and we feel for him.

It's all set to an original operatic score. (Madame Butterfly could not be reduced to 30 seconds, I guess, but this is inspired and fits the bill.) Compellingly art directed and executed, the landscape is a seamless mix of photography and CGI. The live-action background is all parched and muted color, so the animation of the velvety red flower really pops. Later, a female announcer says, "Honeybees are dying, and we rely on them for many of our natural ingredients. Help us save them," and we get the URL for the Web site. Bravissimo.

The print really sings as well. One graphically rambunctious but still elegant ad introduces HD's latest ice cream flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee. In it, a pear, a flower (with a bee nipping at its pollen) and a cherry stacked in a tower share a spread with an aerial shot of a scoop of ice cream -- a bee's-eye view. "Nature needs honey bees. We all do," says the copy under the headline "honey, please don't go." (I don't know why it's all lowercase. Probably for the same reason the campaign misspells honeybee by breaking it into two words: Somebody thought it looked better beneath the "hd loves hb" logo that places a bee-striped heart with beating wings between the initials.)

Next week, a second ad will appear in select regional issues of Newsweek. Talk about interactive: With the headline "plant this page. save a bee," the ad is printed on a recycled linen sheet embedded with actual flower seeds from Sprout Inc., so the page can be torn out of the magazine and planted in the ground.

Häagen-Dazs is also tagging all of its bee-dependent flavors with the "hd loves hb" logo. A portion of the sales of these flavors is being donated to fund pollination and CCD research at Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Davis, up to $250,000. That's a great idea, but why cap it at $250,000? Seems a little frugal to me.

All of the executions drive consumers to helpthehoneybees.com, which provides the soothing sound of birdies chirping and the aforementioned fairy-tale-cottage view of nature. For a city dweller, the navigation is painfully slow -- you put your mouse on a tiny bee and drag it to pockets of information, some of which don't work.

Better to stick with the drop-down hive menu that provides background on the crisis and animated bees that carry signs reading "Save our hive" and "We luv Häagen-Dazs." There's some entertainment: You can build a bee from a menu of body parts and send it to a friend in a "bee-mail" message. And there's also a store that sells T-shirts with phrases like "Long live the queen" and "Bee a hero" and gives away wallpaper and a screensaver as "free-bees."

But after all this razzle-dazzle, isn't the site the place to hammer home the grim reality, and be true to nature, complete with some education and National Geographic-like footage? Really, if bees could make their own picket signs, would they be disappearing?