Over 90 crops in California rely on the oldest profession in nature. Virtually one-third of the food we eat--many of our fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds--are produced for the most part by the indispensable labor force of bees. Most of the world's almonds are grown in this state and the lucrative industry owes its global presence to the tiny troopers. And perhaps to insure everlasting job security, since the beginning of time, these industrious insects bring the ancient and revered gift of honey to people everywhere.

Egyptians and Romans considered honey to be a noble offering to their gods, and the Greeks and Italians have extolled honey's healing properties for centuries. For so many cultures and religions, honey takes center stage on the table of sacred occasions, and references to its aphrodisiacal powers appear in texts from the Kama Sutra to contemporary cookbooks. Traditionally, a groom in India would receive an adequate dose of the golden elixir on his wedding day, which may partly explain the origins of the word "honeymoon."

Some beekeepers like Ann and Mike McDonald sell honey as a side to pollinating their own orchards. Earlier this spring, during a visit to their farm in the Capay Valley, we talked about what they've learned in the ten years since that first package of bees arrived in the mail. While managing twenty acres of almond and walnut trees requires much of their time, on weekends you can find the McDonalds selling their honey at the Davis Farmers' Market. Timid visitors don bee masks as Mike explains how smoke is used to distract the bees while working the hives, and Ann swats at bees distracted apparently in the wrong direction. They pull a frame from one of the man-made hives and reveal a bustling yet orderly community, complete with wax, workers, pollen, brood, honey, and of course, the queen.

There is only one queen per hive and her solo reign is a non-negotiable fact of life. She will not tolerate another and determines the amount and gender of each in the brood. She's the only member of the colony that can sting again and again, as she possesses a barbless or straight stinger, which doesn't get caught in the flesh of her prey. All bees, including those who unfortunately die after just one sting, only employ their stingers in defense. Though the life of an ordinary bee is quite short, roughly six weeks, the queen, until recently, lived three years or more. When she's just seven to ten days old, she takes off on a once-in-a-lifetime maiden voyage during which she's inseminated by ten to twenty drones midflight. Those drones die in the act, and then she returns to the hive with a seemingly infinite store of seminal fluid and lays close to one thousand eggs each day thereafter. Bees bring both pollen and nectar to the hive, and the workers feed royal jelly to their queen to enhance her productivity and longevity.

The relatively recent and disturbing development, known as colony collapse disorder or CCD has scientists, beekeepers, and growers of bee-pollinated crops concerned and searching for answers. Dr. Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology notes that though this is a real problem, historically the disappearance or rapid loss of the honeybee population has occurred before. In the late 1800s there was a colony collapse and back in the 1960s and early '70s, the condition became known as the "disappearing disease" within apiary circles. More recently in 2004 and 2005, the United States suffered a dramatic drop in the bee population, with the press picking up on the story and sounding alarms in 2006. That year, there was a discouraging 25 percent loss of honeybees in this country alone. Mysteriously, bees were abandoning their hives or dying in the field, depending on your point of view. Since then, the queen's life expectancy has decreased to only one to two years. The troubling aspect with this particular event, is the number of negatives likely contributing to the demise. Mussen mentions some of the hurdles bees face: pesticides and other chemicals, loss of habitat and field forage, at least two distinctive mites, and several viruses. Some people speculate about genetically modified crops, and even over-crowded airwaves from millions of cell phones as possible suspects.

Frank Lienert, a local Sacramento beekeeper and honey purveyor, has seen a slew of changes in his business and the environment, and agrees that several factors challenge the health of the bees. Along with others in the beekeeping community, he believes the neonicotinoids used as systemic insecticides may be affecting the bees' ability to find their way home. Frank sells honey to the Sacramento Natural Foods Coop, Corti Brothers, and the farmers' market under the freeway where I caught up with him on a Sunday morning. Frank has been interested and involved in beekeeping for over 40 years. As a young man, he enjoyed the boysenberries that grew on a tree in the same yard of his current home in Sacramento. One year, the berries were gone and he found out that a neighbor, who kept bees, had moved away. With that discovery began his exploration of apiculture and pollination, and today that exploration involves renting and moving hives all over the valley for orchard owners and selling many varieties of honey, pollen, and beeswax to the local community. Folks crowd around the Lienert Honey table at the market and can choose from smaller 12-ounce jars up to the gallon size, and from a golden and light tasting Star Thistle, to the molasses color and taste of Mountain Wildflower. About eleven different varieties, including clover, buckwheat, alfalfa, and sage, all with distinct characteristics of the flower the bees draw nectar from, attract customers in search of a natural, unrefined, and nutritional sweetener. And perhaps not ironically, the crop most reliant on bee pollination, almonds, yields nectar resulting in a bitter honey few people care for. Have millions of years in nature's classroom taught these small creatures to avoid competition with the insatiable human population?

Regardless of the type of flower, raw honey, not the commercial stuff that's been heated above 140°F, contains enzymes and antioxidants that increase immune function, and honey is naturally anti-microbial. Many health practitioners, including Dr. Andrew Weil, the Harvard educated, alternative medicine guru, touts honey as a combatant in certain antibiotic resistant infections. Honey also serves as an excellent cough suppressant for children, and along with bee pollen, seems commonly accepted as an essential pre-emptive strike and remedy for the tree pollen allergies tormenting so many Sacramentans. Many of the customers at the Sunday market validated this claim and others bought honey sticks for energy boosts on long bicycle rides. Frank himself has used it on the spot as a salve for stings, cuts, and scrapes.

In addition to stocking the stores and meeting the demands of honey fans on the weekends, Frank rents hives to orchard owners and has witnessed the cost shoot up from $25 per hive ten years ago, to as much as $200 per hive now. According to information on the UC Davis website and Dr. Mussen, growers need 2 hives per acre and the state has at least 700,000 acres of almonds to pollinate. With loss in the bee population, suppliers are scrambling and having to spend more money getting the hives into the fields. Whether it's about the big agricultural picture or bringing a safely encased display hive into the co-op to share with children, Frank Lienert thinks he'll stay in the bee and honey business as long as he can. And while learning from his knowledge and experience, one can't help ponder the majesty of the honeybee and the workings in the hive and its ruling mistress. This powerful insect tribe, toiling with enviable accuracy, seems paramount to the future of mankind's relationship to the earth. Long live the queen.