by Jeremy Barnes

On October 25, the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers named long time MSBA community member David Papke of the York County Beekeeper’s Association as its Beekeeper of the Year! David is the former president of the Central Maryland Beekeepers, and a long time friend and resource to Free State beekeepers.

Two recent columns in the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers newsletter provide the perfect way in which to introduce David. The September column was about late bloomers, meaning those who see their lives as a process of trial and error so that the quality of their work peaks as they age.They need a variety of experiences to develop what has been labeled "diverse curiosity." They teach themselves through life experience, and in particular they have an  ability to see things from multiple points of view. Finally, late bloomers never cross the finish line and relax. Age does not diminish their curiosity. 

In 1981, in Central America, British Honduras became independent as Belize. Two years prior to that transition, David applied to the Peace Corps, expecting them to focus on his carpentry skills. Instead, based on his three years of essentially self-taught beekeeping skills, he was sent to British Honduras to teach beekeeping to the indigenous Mayan people. Clearly this experience had a major impact on his life, both personally and professionally, and provided an extensive foundation on which he has built. And I am assured that the fact that British Honduras became independent shortly after his departure is pure coincidence … 

Soon after his return to US, David became a High School teacher of English Literature and a Drama coach in Baltimore, with invariably a few hives in small out-yards. In 1987 he lost all of his 12 hives to tracheal mites but was able to purchase 40 more, split them and recover. At the same time he was increasing his involvement in the CMBA , eventually becoming President, until in 1998 he and his wife Sue Duling, who is an educator in her own right, specializing in the teaching of the French and Spanish languages, purchased a property in rural York County involving a house that required major renovation, and a hog barn that David has turned into his Bee Haus. It’s a beautiful space, David shares it generously, and it has been a centre for many bee related events for local beekeepers.

In 2005 he took over an established bee practice with pollination contracts, and soon had 80 hives with which to pursue both honey sales and pollination contracts. What is significant, at least for me, was not the amount of honey sold or the number of hives out for pollination, but the quality of David’s relationships with his customers. 

He and I first met when he persuaded the board of CMBA to donate $300 to the YCBA to build up its library. It was interesting that at our annual banquet, four evenings ago, he acknowledged the present librarian and just how impressive that library has become.

Six years ago David began to ask two vital questions, inspired by the work of Tom Seeley :

• How is it that unmanaged feral hives survived CCD and mite infestation, while managed hives are vulnerable to both? What are feral bees doing that managed bees have lost?
• How can beekeeping become more bee-centric, more centered on the needs of the honey bee, and less on the convenience of the beekeeper?

So quantity was replaced with quality. 80 colonies became 20, and David gradually developed a philosophy and a system he calls Regenerative Beekeeping. A gifted communicator, he has written and talked frequently about RB not least in two articles that were printed in ABJ (August, October, 2022,) and here at this state conference two years ago. Like Regenerative Agriculture, with its focus on the quality of the soil above all else, Regenerative Beekeeping is based on the quality of the immediate colonial environment above all else. 

And this is what I mean by David epitomizing the late bloomer. His philosophy and practice today as a beekeeper is the culmination of some 50 years of thought, reading (he has an extensive private library,) experimentation, discussion, observation, and finding new patterns. He is a man of diverse curiosity, and age has not diminished his spirit of inquiry. 

And he is always ready to share - workshops in the Bee Haus, presentations to county bee meetings, his ‘State of the Bees’ reports at the monthly York meetings, and chairing our 100th Centennial events in 2019, not to mention responding generously to each and every request he receives from innumerable individual beekeepers. 

This brings me to the second column, one that will be in this month’s State Newsletter. 

Writing in Honeybees, a Natural and a Less Natural History, which was translated from the Dutch last year, and which I highly recommend, Jacques van Alphen wrote that “There is a tradition of passing on knowledge through courses and conferences, and meetings between beekeepers often give rise to lively exchanges on all aspects of the profession. The danger, however, is that age-old practices are not called into question, or re-evaluated and brought up to date… As a biologist and an outsider, I was amazed at what beekeepers take for granted. … all the new knowledge about bee behavior, genetics and evolution has not led to fundamental changes in beekeeping.” 

David has long incorporated evolutionary and ecological criteria in his beekeeping reading and practice, and now, inspired by Keith Delaplane in particular, and recognizing the vital role that genetics has to play in current successful beekeeping practices, he has set out to become more familiar not only with the complex role and interaction of genes and alleles, chromatin and chromosomes, but also of the vital role that genetic diversity plays in honey bee health. 

Ten years ago, in a series of articles printed in Bee Culture, Randy Oliver suggested that “The honey bee reproductive process is designed for rapid adaption to changes in its niche, and for recovery from decimation events … It is the same with beekeepers - those who are constantly trying new things and adapting to the changing biological environments, are those who tend to be successful in the long run.

I can find no better way to epitomize Pennsylvania's 2024 Beekeeper of the Year, David Papke. 

[Return to February 2025 Beeline newsletter]