Retirement means a slower pace in life for some, but not for Harold Ludditt of Houston who, at the age of sixty, finds himself as busy as his over-one-million honey bees.

Harold is a past employee of Houston Forest Products, volunteer fire chief and ambulance attendant. He now divides his days between Auxiliary Police work and his hobby of beekeeping.

What began as a hobby 14 years ago has taken off into a sticky business called Harold's Honeypot. In the best year, Harold harvested a solid half ton of honey from his bees.

Good beekeeping requires being one step ahead of the bees, something Harold calls "...messing with their minds". To understand, you need to know that bees make honey using the nectar from flowers. Honey is made in the spring and summer, then stored and later used for food in the hive in the fall and winter. What a beekeeper does is remove the full honeycombs and empty them of honey, then put them back. The bees will refill the combs over and over again until the flowers are gone.

Watching bees work is watching nature at its best- from the geometrically perfect combs they make with wax secreted from their bodies - to the hierarchy of the queen bee whose soul purpose is to mate in flight and then begin laying eggs over the next 2 to 3 years of her life to ensure future workers to man her hive.

Harold is an encyclopedia of bee information. At one point, Harold even offered to let himself be stung so that I could see for myself the answer to my question "How do you remove a bee stinger?"