When California was wild, it was one sweet bee-garden throughout its entire length, north and south, and all the way across from the snowy Sierra to the ocean…The air was sweet with fragrance, the larks sang their blessed songs…while myriads of wild bees stirred the lower air with their monotonous hum – monotonous, yet forever fresh and sweet as every-day sunshine.

– John Muir, “The Bee-Pastures”, The Mountains of California (1896)