colony of bees for good pollination.”

Local beekeepers are the latest in a line of Petaluma that can be traced back, at least, to Mrs. W.L. Carr’s Cherry Hill Apiary honey, advertised in the 1927 Petaluma High School PTA recipe book under the headline “Your children’s health depends on pure food products.”

In a way, nothing has changed. Peterson, a retired elementary school teacher, introduces at least 2,000 schoolchildren to bees every October, when they come to Peterson’s Farm to see the pumpkin patch and beehives. Her barn is also the meeting place for the 4H club beekeepers.

She teaches the children about the brood box (where the bees live), and that the various colors of pollen represent the different plants the bees visit. In October the bees pollinate her pumpkins, but during the early part of the year they might visit eucalyptus or wild mustard. She has an observation hive for the children to see what one looks like on the inside.

Peterson has 11 hives. She sold about 500 pounds of honey last year.

The most common bees are mellifera ligustica, also called “Italian bees” because they originated in the Liguria region of Italy, near the romantic Cinque Terre.

Another native of that area is Angelo Ibleto of Angelo’s Meats, who grew up in Liguria. He took up beekeeping five years ago out of nostalgia for his childhood days in Italy when a local schoolteacher honey.” schoolteacher raised bees. He sells the honey alongside his gourmet meats.

“People now realize that honey is better for you than sugar,” he said. “Especially for those who suffer from allergies. And they like the local honey.”

He has two dozen hives and is fascinated by the insects, which go where they please. Neighboring farmer Sally Carstensen said in an interview last year that Ibleto’s bees pollinate her organic strawberries every spring.

“No charge,” he said. “You cannot tell the bees, ‘Don’t go there.’”

But Ibleto doesn’t call his honey organic. After all, joked the gregarious butcher, you can’t tell the bees to visit only organic strawberries.

Ibleto is also known for his chestnut honey, and loves tasting it right off the honeycomb. “Oh yeah,” he said with relish. “My God, are you kidding? To be able to get a piece of honey from the comb and put it in your mouth, I think is the best thing anybody can have.” Rick and JoAnn Wallenstein of the Lavender Bee Farm got bees to help their lavender grow. They have more than 5,000 lavender plants and 30 hives.

“When the lavender is blooming and the bees are on them and they’re working to get the pollen and the nectar,” said Rick Wallenstein, “you walk through the rows and the fragrance of lavender just comes up, and it’s really like – this is what nature is all about.”

Wallenstein said they have a few crops of honey a year and each tastes