Davis and his wife have operated their honey business for more than a decade and manage hives across Hempstead County. “We have between four and four and a half million females working for us,” Davis told the club. “All we do is provide them a home. We feed them when it’s necessary. We medicate them when it’s necessary. All we ask is that they work hard and sacrifice their life for us—and that’s exactly what they do.”
He explained the roles played by the various bees inside a hive. First in the hierarchy is the queen, who develops in just over two weeks and can lay 1,500 to 2,000 eggs per day. “She has to eat several times her body weight to be able to do that,” Davis said. Worker bees, all female, handle cleaning, nursing, foraging, and guarding. “They do all the work—housekeeping, nursing the baby bees, tending to the queen’s needs, foraging for nectar and pollen, defending the hive,” Davis said.
In explaining the role of the forage bees, also all female, Davis described how nectar becomes honey. “When a forage bee returns to the hive, she passes nectar to a worker bee, who spits it into another’s mouth, and another’s, and so on. That reduces the moisture and adds enzymes from their stomachs. The nectar has to be brought down to 18.5 percent moisture or less before the bees will cap it in wax. Once it’s capped, that’s honey.”
He also explained how bees communicate food sources. “When she gets back to the hive, she does a little dance to tell the others where the nectar is,” Davis said. “That dance tells them four things: the distance, the direction, the quality, and the quantity. She’ll even spit a tiny sample into their mouths so they know what they’re looking for.”
Davis warned that maintaining hives requires constant attention. “A lot of folks think you can just buy a box, set it out, and a year later you’ll have honey,” he said. “That’s not how it works. You have to work those bees. You have to manage them, feed them, medicate them. If you’ve got cows, you feed them. If you’ve got chickens, you feed them. Bees are no different.”
He listed common threats, including herbicides and varroa mites. “The last report I saw showed a 60 percent loss among beekeepers,” he said. “Think about it—highway departments are spraying, farmers are spraying, power companies are spraying. That weakens the hives. Then the varroa mite gets in. It looks like a big tick on the bee. It feeds under their scales and spreads disease. Once a hive population drops, they can’t defend themselves and they die out.”
Davis also said he no longer provides one-on-one mentoring to beginners. “When I first got into bees, I wanted to shadow a commercial beekeeper, and they told me no. At the time it frustrated me. Now I understand,” he said. “I’ve had people set up hives and then not manage them. That box becomes a breeding ground for mites and beetles. Those pests don’t stay put—they fly over to my hives and contaminate mine. I’m spending $1,500 a year fighting mites, and it’s very frustrating when others don’t take care of their bees. That’s why I don’t mentor one-on-one anymore. It’s just too risky for my operation.”
Instead, he recommends that prospective beekeepers join local bee clubs in Hope or Texarkana. “When I started, I learned a lot there,” he said.
Davis added, in answer to a question from a Lion member, that local honey can help people with allergies. “If it’s within a 75-mile radius, that honey is made from the same pollens you’re breathing in,” he said. “That’s why local honey matters.”
He said that although beekeeping is difficult, he continues to expand his operation. “I started with two hives just to have a little honey. Now I’ve got more than a hundred. I just kept adding more every year.”
Papa's Honey can be bought in Hope at Terry Powell's Grocery and Station, Farm Store and several other places in town.
