Bartlebee Brands Honey Bug Program
Another one of Bartlebee’s many external ventures, the Honey Bugs was a program started during the 1930s. The country-wide initiative was aimed at school aged girls to "help guide girls along the path to womanhood." It focused on teaching practical skills that were not taught in schools such as cooking, cleaning, teamwork, first aid, discipline, outdoor survival skills, and good citizenship; "everything girls would need as future workers, mothers, homemakers, nurses, teachers and proper Americans."
The program for girls was something dreamed up by Aaron Fulch. In his words:
"I look at the little girls of today and I am reminded of when my own daughter was their age. She was always such a perfect child, even as a baby she never fussed or cried. If America had more girls and women like her, proper little ladies, the world would be better for it. We need to teach our girls how to grow up to be kind, capable and level headed women."
The program worked like this. If someone wanted to start a group of Honey Bugs, they would need at least six or more girls to make up the group and an adult (woman) to run the program for them. Weekly meetings would be hosted in the adult leaders home or a community centre such as a church. Girls were provided with a uniform consisting of a dress, necktie and hat along with a handbook that contained everything they would need to know to follow the program. The Guide To Being A Proper Honey Bug handbook also had a pledge that girls were required to memorize and recite during their initiation ceremony, and a Honey Bug Law that the kids were encouraged to follow even outside of group meetings and events.
The very first Honey Bugs meeting. A gathering of girls and three women, the group stands on the steps of a building and while the girls are wearing the same uniform (long button down collared shirts, neckerchiefs, long skirts, black socks and shoes, wide brimmed hats) the three women wear more fancy clothing and cloche hats. They look at the camera with gleeful yet restrained expressions.
The most unique gimmick of the Honey Bugs program was it allowed girls to earn embroidered patches by participating in certain activities or completing a list of requirements that they could then display on their uniforms. The patches and their requirements were meant to encourage girls to develop skills and interests in things that would help them later in life. These skills were mostly in line with domestic gender roles of the time like sewing, cooking, cleaning, child care, and even balancing a household budget. The handbook stated that "if a girl were able to earn every patch in the book, it would be the proudest moment of her life, for she will have learned everything she could ever need to know to become a proper and well prepared woman." Provided to us were the badges kids could earn for beekeeping, cooking and gardening/floral arrangement.
There was a clear military influence, from the uniforms, to the fact that groups were called "troops", to the strict rules girls were required to adhere to. Oftentimes the camping trips troops would go on were more in line with something one would expect of a military bootcamp. These trips would have been an opportunity for girls to learn outdoor survival skills like camping, how to make fires, tracking animals, identifying edible vs unsafe plants, and other physical activities. Most of the other activities the girls were allowed to do were much more traditionally feminine, like sewing or cooking, so I imagine getting to break out of the prim and proper girly mould of the program to go spend time in the great outdoors for a few days would have been a nice change of pace for them.
Although, these trips would have been few and far between, as they were very costly. While Honey Bugs was an official Bartlebee program, the company did not provide anything other than the uniforms, badges and handbooks (which the parents of the girls had to purchase.) Anything and everything else had to be fundraised for by the troops mostly through bake sales, and of course the kids had to purchase the ingredients for the baked goodies themselves before they could even start baking. The Honey Bug handbook contained a sugar cookie recipe that girls were encouraged (read: required) to follow. This recipe was, notoriously, terrible to work with, something Emma and I got to experience first hand when we tried it for ourselves. (The recipe didn’t have nearly enough flour, we ended up having to add probably more than double what it asked for. We also had to chill the dough before rolling it out and baking it to get it to a consistency that held any kind of shape.) Aside from these sugar cookies, Honey Bugs were allowed to follow any cookie or baked good recipe from official Bartlebee Brand cookbooks for their bake sales. And since these groups were using the Bartlebee name, a large percentage of their earnings had to go back to the company, making fundraising efforts even more tedious.
A plate of sugar cookies in a variety of shapes, many of them being decorated with icing and sprinkles to resemble Beetrice B.E. One of the Beetrice cookies head has been bitten off.
Sugar Cookies
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar, white, brown, or maple
2 eggs, well beaten
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla or lemon extract
1 tablespoon milk
Flour (about 1½ cups)
Cream butter, add sugar, eggs, milk, and flour mixed and sifted with baking powder and salt. Chill, roll, cut, and bake. For variety, flavor with nutmeg or cinnamon, or add chopped candied ginger or chopped nut meats to the mixture.
The Honey Bugs program ran for around three decades until, like many of Bartlebee Brands other miscellaneous ventures, it ended up getting its funding cut in an effort to save money as the company approached bankruptcy. The program was officially disbanded in 1968 and BB stopped production of the Honey Bug uniform, patches and handbooks. Though some individual troops may have continued to host their weekly meetings after this happened, they probably wouldn't have been able to keep going for very long as there would be no patches to earn and new members wouldn't have been able to get their uniforms or handbooks - not to mention if they were found using Bartlebee's name that would have spelled mountains of legal trouble, and I doubt their bake sale money would have been enough to fight even a struggling Bartlebee Brands in court.