George Washington portrait by Gilbert Stuart. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

And the yellow.

On a camping trip last week to Doran Regional Park, Bodega Bay, we admired our neighbors' display of American flags—bordered with a dozen honey bees.

These bees, however, didn't buzz. They spun.

The colorful yellow, black and white mobiles attacked the wind like fierce little windmills, livening up the campground.

“Are you beekeepers?” I asked the neighbor.

“No,” she replied. “We just like bees.”

So did George Washington (1732-1799), the founding father of our country.

Mount Vernon research historian Mary Thompson notes that George Washington was the first U.S. president to keep bees. In Washingtonpapers.org, she writes that his "indentured English joiner,"  Matthew Baldridge, received 300 nails at the Circle Storehouse on July 28, 1787 "to make a bee house."

"Two days later, Matthew received another 200 nails for the same project," Thompson notes. "In addition to getting honey from his own bees, George Washington is known to have purchased honey, as well as other foodstuffs such as chickens, eggs, vegetables, and fruit from his slaves. Honey, for example, was acquired at various times from Nat (a blacksmith); Davy, who was an enslaved overseer;and carpenters Sambo an Isaac, indicating that they, too, probably kept bees."

A Cordovan honey bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

This honey bee was not seeking nectar or pollen, but the wind. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Thompson says President Washington also liked cake spread with honey and butter: "A visitor from Poland reported that Washington had “tea and caks (sic) made from maize; because of his teeth he makes slices spread with butter and honey….”

And, according to step-granddaughter Nelly Custis, Washington "ate three small mush cakes (Indian meal) swimming in butter and honey," and "drank three cups of tea without cream."

The founding father also liked gifts of honey. Knowing his fondness for honey, sister Betty Washington Lewis gifted him with a "large Pot of very fine in the Comb," when the president was recovering from a serious illness.  

The Mount Vernon research historian also relates: "At the close of Washington's presidency eight years later, among the many things the family packed to ship back to Mount Vernon from Philadelphia was 'one demijohn with honey.' A demijohn was a very large glass bottle, covered with wickerwork."

Honey for the hoecakes, hoecakes swimming in honey... 

Honey bees entering their hive. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Of course, you go. 

Almond pollination season is a delight to see and record. Almonds rank No. 2 among California's most valued agricultural commodities, right behind dairy products.

Sadly, glamour photographers often trespass on private property to take images of high fashion models in evening gowns and high heels, or to pose newly engaged couples and newlyweds.  (One professional photographer even lists "40 poses for spring engagement photos in almond orchards.")

Apparently there's money to be made from the hard work of the farmers.

However, those of us born and raised on a farm appreciate the land, crops and farmers more than we do trespassing glamour photographers looking for a backdrop.

Almond pollination season ought to be about almond pollination.

Latest statistics from the U.S.Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Services, show that "California's 2020 almond acreage at an estimated 1,600,000 acres, 5.3 percent higher than the 2019 acreage of 1,520,000. Of the total acreage for 2020, 1,250,000 acres were bearing, 5.9 percent above 2019, and 350,000 acres were non-bearing, up 2.9 percent from 2019. Preliminary bearing acreage for 2021 is estimated at 1,330,000 acres."

"Fresno, Kern, Stanislaus, Merced and Madera were the leading counties. These five counties accounted for 73% of the total bearing acreage." 

Almond pollination season usually starts around Feb. 14 and ends around mid-March.  Growers advocate two hives per acre. But since California doesn't have enough bees to pollinate the almonds, beekeepers truck their bees here from all over the United States. The Almond Board of California points out that "two-thirds of the nation's commercial honey bees hives converge in California."

This year almond growers and beekeepers faced frost ("cold snap"), rain, hail and a myriad of hive thefts. (In addition to trespassing photographers.)

Sadly, on our visit to an isolated Esparto almond orchard on Feb. 16, we not only saw the beginning of the almond pollination season, but the beginning of more work for the land owners--a discarded mattress, tossed potato chip bags, crumbled candy wrappers, broken beer bottles and other trash.

Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. (1997-2003), the father of honey bee genetics

Let's pay special tribute to the servicemen and women who left the family farm to serve in our military. They were the farmers who fed the nation. And they became soldiers who defended our nation, much like guard bees defending their hives from intruders.

The late Harry Hyde Laidlaw Jr., (1907-2003),  a noted professor at the University of California, Davis,  was both a beekeeper and a military veteran. Harry spent his late boyhood and teen years in southeastern United States,  working as a beekeeper with his grandfather.  "Although he had never completed elementary school, he was able to enroll as a special student at Louisiana State University," according to a a UC memorial tribute. "In 1934 he completed a master's degree in entomology, and from there he went on to earn a Ph.D. in genetics and entomology from the University of Wisconsin in 1939."

Laidlaw went on to become renowned as "the father of honey bee genetics." (See his interview on Aggie Videos.)

But he was also an Army veteran. In 1942, he was inducted into the U.S. Army, commissioned, and served as the Army entomologist for the First Service Command in Boston, Mass. "He didn't see any war action, but I think he fought mosquitors on a base in Newfoundland," remembers his daughter Barbara Laidlaw Murphy. "Later he was stationed in Boston and that's how he met my mother. He stayed in the reserves and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel."

If you visit the UC Davis bee biology facility, the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus, you'll see a sign memorializing him. The sign, the work of Davis-based artist Donna Billick, creatively includes a hole in the skep for bees to tunnel to a hive located in back.   For years we saw bees entering with pollen, leaving to get more, and guard bees on duty. Due to liability issues, the hive is no longer there, but there are plenty of hives in the apiary behind the building.

Bees and veterans go well together. Take the Hives for Heroes, a national, non-profit organization founded in 2018 in Houston, Texas, to help America's military veterans by getting them involved in beekeeping. Hives for Heroes focuses on honey bee conservation, suicide prevention, and a healthy transition from service.  As their website says: "As a 501(c)3, Hives for Heroes gives back to veterans looking to start their beekeeping journey. Our organization is run by volunteers looking to serve those veterans who have selflessly served our country."

Our military veterans guarded and defended our nation. Now, in caring for their colonies in their newly acquired beekeeping roles, they can watch bees guard and defend their hives. 

Vacaville resident Lynn Starner saw dozens of bees heading toward the cluster on her patio roof. (Photo by Lynn Starner)

"I saw the swarm when I looked out the window," said Vacaville resident Lynn Starner.  She watched dozens of bees buzzing toward the cluster.

Flowering plum branches sheltered and shadowed the swarm's temporary home, while the intrepid bee scouts searched for a permanent one.

A moving swarm is as fascinating as it is remarkable. "The casual observer sees chaos, but in reality it's organized, moving in circles with scouts flying through the swarm, directing it while it travels at about 11 kilometers per hour," writes renowned honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. of UC Davis and Arizona State University in his 256-page book The Art of the Bee: Shaping the Environment from Landscapes to Societies.

"They don't go far," he writes. "A few bees land on a nearby branch, expose their scent glands located near the tip of the abdomen, fan their wings and blow air over the sponge-like gland spreading a chemical scent through the air. The chemical smells like citrus and attracts the other bees flying in the swarm to land on the branch. The queen alights, and soon the swarm is hanging, locked together foot to foot to body in a football-shaped mass, the swarm cluster. This is an intermediate rendezvous point, a place for a temporary bivouac from which the scouts can operate and find a new, permanent home. Some bees initiate foraging, bringing back supplies to feed the masses, while the scouts branch out and scout the landscape looking for the perfect nest site. The scouts are part hunter, part surveyor and part engineer." 

The bee swarm, shadowed and sheltered by flowering plum branches, looked like this about an hour after Vacaville resident Lynn Starner saw it on the morning of April 1 on her patio. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Honey bees are both artists and engineers, Page writes in his book. As environmental artists, bees are "responsible for the brilliantly colored flowers in our landscapes," and as environmental engineers, they engineer “the niches of multitudes of plants, animals and microbes."

But back to the bee swarm at the Starner home.

Starner contacted a Vacaville beekeeping family, Craig and Shelly Hunt and daughters Alyssa, 13 and Emma, 8. They arrived in the early evening, around 6, to collect the bees. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Craig taught 4-H'ers (including Alyssa and Emma) the art of beekeeping.

"It was a huge swarm," Shelly said. "We filled two boxes."

The bees are now thriving in the Hunt family's apiary on Meridian Road. 

It's bees-ness as usual for the Hunts.

And home, sweet home for the bees.