City Bees™ got started in 1996 with four sustainable, long-term goals:
It is a positive experience to be nurturing nature, to be cordially and (hopefully) politically correct in playing the faux hand of god by providing thoughtful apiary assistance. With the honorable genetic disposition of the devotedly hard-working Apis Mellifera, the European honey bee, it is rewarding to set up the creation of enchanted nectars out of thin air, as it were. To be a modern agriculturalist practicing an ancient art in a city as beautiful as San Francisco is a delight. And the joy and connectedness that a hosting relationship brings to the hive sponsors, who watch the bees on a regular basis to witness their delight in the beauty of a sun-basked day and who witness the bees' love of their caste as evidenced by their proclivity to accomplish for the greater good - people become soulfully attached. The roar of working bees in the midday sunlight, in the heart of a luscious spring, is fulfilling beyond belief. Bees are pure nature and nature is pure divinity. By all means, celebrate life, as do the bees. And taste their honey ...
Bee features in the press are always a welcome event because it allows the public to gain an awareness of bee's plight above and beyond alarmist issues such as "africanization". Pam Turner wrote a terrific article for the Kids section of The Christian Science Monitor: The ABCs of Bees , May 27, 2003, and Laramie Trevino provided The San Francisco Chronicle with a nice overview of bees in the city with: Abuzz About Urban Honey... , October 5, 2002.
1999 was the first year of great press, being featured by magazine, newspaper, television and National Public Radio. Urban Farming, including City Bees honey production, was highlighted in a wonderful article by the insightful writer Katherine Seligman. "Growth Industry: Farming in The City", was a front page story in the Sunday San Francisco Examiner on May 23, 1999. Thereafter, the article was printed from the Associated Press Wire Service in Santa Barbara, San Diego, Seattle, Durango and in the Modesto Bee, that we know of. The article focused on the growing number of certified agricultural producers within the San Francisco city limits.