LATELY, Burt's Bees has started to police its industry.
Nicolas Cage, allergic to bees, has his head shoved into a cage full of them.
But the notion that our communities are divided between leeches and worker bees has taken root.
In the meantime, the task of defending Clorox's purchase of Burt's Bees has fallen on Mr. Replogle's shoulders.
A company called Big Island Bees has just started selling its honeys on the mainland, through chefshop.com.
The rain has led to more mosquitoes in California, new greenery is a wildfire hazard, and officials in Phoenix say the number of calls about bees has tripled.
Synthesizers drone and vibrate away somewhere, and an amplified buzzing of bees has, when you get close, the roar of fighter planes.
The short-haired bumblebee, which like other bees has a crucial role in pollinating plants, was once common in the UK, as far north as Humberside.
The decline of bees has previously been blamed on starvation as meadows and other habitats are ploughed up, and from diseases and parasites, such as the varroa mite.
While Barnett has appeared on Saturday Night Live and played high-profile music festivals around the world, the plight of bees has been highlighted in global environmental campaigns.
Like most natural-products companies, Burt's Bees has the luxury of charging enough for its goods to pay for such causes.
