All Purpose Bees

All Purpose Bees is an incomplete novel set in Stapleton, California in the year 2042.

The novel focuses on three Central Valley almond producing families who are neighbors, the Nezerjian, Ortega and Wilson clans as they try to manage their operations against a backdrop of climate and generational change. The three neighboring families are among the last of the independent operators in the area, and face an uncertain future as both the supply of pollinating bee colonies dwindles and the current generation of operators approaches retirement age.

Only Part One of the novel was produced. The author, Damien Dojoz, was in the act of writing All Purpose Bees when the Second Moon event in Starholder occurred. Like billions of others, news reports alerted him to the presence of a large dark red second moon looming in the night sky behind our moon. Dojoz looked out his window in awe, realizing that the world had changed forever and no one would have any interest in reading a Steinbeck inspired meditation on change in farming communities.

Placing this real world event into the novel, Dojoz writes the last scene of All Purpose Bees from the perspective of Almond Al Nezerjian discovering the second moon for himself. The work was left unfinished. Dojoz was called back from retirement and returned to the aerospace industry as a logistics manager. In the chaotic years after the Second Moon revealed itself, little is recorded of Dojoz.

Characters from All Purpose Bees are very active in the Starholder Timeline and All Purpose Bees serves as an important introduction to a tight knit circle of almond growing neighbors who end up leading the citizen charge into space a decade later.