Honey has been a source of food for man since primitive times. A Spanish rock painting, dated from about 7,000 B.C., shows a figure gathering honey. Beekeepers first kept their colonies in hollow logs, baskets, or clay jars. The bees were killed in the fall so that the honey could be gathered.

Now, beekeeping is a scientifically managed agricultural business. Bees, originally found only in the Old World, are now everywhere except the Polar Regions. The bounty of your vegetable plot or fruit trees can be attributed to the work of the bees as well as to your gardening skills.

Many fruits and vegetables require pollen from another plant in order to produce. Bees transfer the necessary pollen from one plant to another. Most apples, pears, cherries, plums, almonds, citrus, cantaloupe, and watermelon need such transfer. Even plants that are capable of self-pollination will produce more, larger, and better shaped fruit if they are cross-pollinated. Good examples of such self fruitful, bee pollinated crops are strawberries, peaches, and nectarines.

Years ago, solitary bees (wild bees that do not colonize) nested in the vegetation along fences, open ditches, and weed-lined roads. It was these bees that pollinated wildflowers, family gardens, and small farms and orchards. Chemical weed control, underground storm drains, and the widespread use of pesticides (solitary bees are more susceptible to pesticides than are honey bees) have greatly reduced the solitary bee population. Honey bees are becoming more important, therefore, and yet, beekeepers are losing an increasing number of hives to chemical poisoning. Many of the pesticides and chemicals are dispersed by farmers and public works departments. We need to be sure not to compound the poisoning from our own back yards. We must follow pesticide and herbicide instructions, use them on days that are not windy, and prevent run-off of chemicals - particularly now that Sierra Vista will be using wastewater/wildlife ponds.

You can try to increase the number of bees in your garden by putting in flowering plants. Or, you can assure yourself of plenty of bees by putting a hive in your own garden. Do-it yourself hobby beekeeping kits are available commercially. You can have your own fresh honey as well as a wonderfully producing garden.

Editor's Note: The great great grandfather of Elizabeth Riordon is "the father of modem beekeeping", Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth. Lorenzo used the crucial 3/8" "bee space" to design the first movable-frame modern bee hive.