According to beekeeper Sharon Gibbons, those little insects she tends are a friendly breed. In spite of having stingers, they are not aggressive, she said at Little Creek Nature Area in Florissant, where she keeps nine colonies.

"They just defend their house," she said. "After all, they don't want to do that, because they know they'll die if they sting."

Should a bee sting as it prepares for winter, Gibbons recommends rubbing ginger root on the spot.

Although Gibbons started keeping them as a hobby in 1980, the stripes of the busy little bees bedazzled her right into a full-time business of 700 colonies in central and eastern Missouri. They now produce about 80,000 pounds of honey a year.

Tomorrow Rosh Hashanah begins, so she has been busy filling orders for the kosher product that is used in the Jewish wish for a sweet new year.

"I consider our honey raw, although we don't put that on the label," Gibbons said. "It has no pollen or anything. All we do is strain it. There is only a little heating to 100 degrees to pour it in the jar."

Glenda Mostek of the National Honey Board says honey has a "very, very small carbon footprint," because production emits so little carbon dioxide. In other words, the process uses minimal energy.

The bees are hard, efficient workers, Gibbons said.

They fly up to 2 miles from the hive to gather nectar. They prefer smaller plants.

"They have to get back before dark, or they can't find their home," she said.

A colony holds one queen, who is nurtured on royal jelly. She mates with drones in flight during a distinctive "dance," receives millions of sperm cells for her entire life and lays up to 3,000 eggs in a single day.

Dependent on her health, a beekeeper helps keep a hive clean and free from disease. To do this, the hive is placed near abundant nectar sources and water.

As worker bees search for nectar to make honey, they transfer pollen from plant to plant. The growing scarcity of bees nationwide is forcing the insects to work even harder.

"Now one-fourth of the hives get trucked to California," Gibbons said. "Almond growers pay big bucks to have them. But the bees are like a kid going to kindergarten. They catch everything in their new location."

This leads to more stress - which besieges the bees.

So Gibbons is working now in September, National Honey Month, to help her bees produce the honey they need for winter. And hopefully nature will not put a damper on clover and black locust blooms, as it did last spring, just when bees needed it to become strong.

Ah, more stress. Always something to worry about when there are little ones around.