I Love Bees was an audio drama, unlocked via an Alternate Reality Game. The AGR was initially created as a viral marketing campaign to promote the upcoming game Halo 2. The entire campaign was created by 42 Entertainment.
Initially, I Love Bees was discarded as not being part of the Halo canon. In October 2004, Joseph Staten said in an interview that “The Bees would not make the cut. Those guys basically did their own thing with very little Bungie input (save for massaging and approving the initial plot-treatment). While we helped define the boundaries of their fiction, we let them do what they thought best. And I think the game turned out great.” Two years later, in July 2006, Frank O’Connor said that “We’re going to have this huge collection of canon and things that we embrace as canon, like I Love Bees and stuff like that.” Elements like weapons, vehicles or colonies from I Love Bees also featured in other media, including the Halo Graphic Novel, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, and Halo Infinite.