Bees have always interested me. As a school boy I was facinated by them every year when I saw the observation hive at our local county fair. I will never forget finding my first wild hive in an old tree stump. Visions of honey filled my head as I went after it one winter day. I had heard that bees couldn't fly if the temperature was below freezing. My intent was to cut a hole in the side of the stump and get some of that honey! When I looked inside the hive one lone bee flew out. Tuperware and the chainsaw went flying as I took off for safety! Needless to say if I were to get any honey that year it would be from the store.

As fur prices bottomed out from lack of demand my farm became rather barren of quail and rabbits. Foxes had become so thick that little could survive. I decided to thin them out and learned how to trap. A major ingredient of trapping is beeswax. Steel traps don't last long or work very well being set in the wet ground unless they are dipped in beeswax! It was this need for wax that pushed me into keeping bees.

By 1990 I had trapped 25 foxes off of the farm. And for me, keeping a couple of hives of bees was like trying to eat just one potato chip. I had 24 hives hives going. I had build a plastic green house over them so that I could play with them through most of the winter. I was hooked! It was shortly after that that I went to see a woman speak about how honeybee stings had changed her life. This was the begining of the greatest adventure of my life. This woman couldn't even stand up. As she labored to tell her story I could not believe that anyone that looked that sick could have been possibly helped by bee stings. Months past before I saw her again. She looked better, had more color in her face, a definate twinkle in her eye, she was without doubt improving. That lady was Pat Wagner now affectionately known as the "Bee Lady."

It was at an Eastern Apiculture Society meeting in Salisbury Maryland that I got to sit and talk with Pat. When she learned that I lived near her she asked "Do you think you could mail some bees to people that need them for stinging?" My reply was "I don't see why not." Within a year I gave up my job and concentrated on keeping bees full time. By 2002 we have shipped over 60,000 boxes of bees for BVT. I now tend 180 hives raised expressly for BVT. I can think of no other job that could be as rewarding as what I do now. February, 2002 I will turn 50! I plan on shipping bees for many more years to come and will continue working on alterative BVT methods. In my line of work I get stung quite often so I do feel your pain and have an idea of what you are going through. Reducing that pain is my present goal and I thank everyone for allowing me to help.

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