Gerard'z Honey Bees, Livermore

More than a century ago, an industrious farmer named Gerard enlisted the help of bees to pollinate his family estate farm. Inadvertently, the buzzing insects fertilized a new passion for Gerard, one that would become a family tradition. Four generations later, Gerard’Z Honeybees' bustling hives create more than a dozen local and monofloral honey varietals, from such plants as star thistle, orange blossoms, and avocado blossoms. Because the honey is completely raw and natural, they maintain the micro-nutritious qualities often left out of industrial varieties, and they may help allergy sufferers to acclimate to their local pollen varieties. Gerard’Z Honeybees holds year-round beekeeping workshops and honey tasting seminars at local wineries, nurseries, and farmers’ markets throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley. During the classes and tastings, bee experts demystify the process of maintaining a hive, and people get the chance to taste the difference between clover honey, buckwheat honey, black sage honey, and avocado honey. Gerard’Z Honeybees also helps to maintain the delicate honeybee population by finding homes for wild swarms or colonies that have built hives in unwanted places and might otherwise fall prey to exterminators.