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At 94, Beekeeper Has Sweet Life

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By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 14, 2008

TRILBY - Alwyn Purkis reads Playboy in front of his wife and kids.

At 94, the retired beekeeper does as he pleases. Always has.

He has read Playboy for years and for years lived as a nudist. And although he can't offer scientific proof, Alwyn says the thousands of bee stings he has received over the years have contributed to his long life.

Alwyn's eccentricities have worked for him and the family business, Pasco Honey, which he started in the 1950s.

Although economic and environmental challenges have forced beekeepers across the country out of business, Pasco Honey still manages a bustling drive-through-style business.

The family's 17.5-acre tract is home to a two-story barn where machines have deposited bee honey into large drums for decades. From a stand beside the barn, the Purkises peddle palmetto, gallberry and orange blossom honey on a good-faith basis. People leave their money and take home a gallon, quart or pint.

If they need help, customers blow their horns.

"All the people from up North, when they go home, they want to take their orange blossom honey to their neighbors or relations," said Alwyn's wife of 40 years, Guadalupe, 75, a native of Belize.

"The health nuts go for the palmetto," Alwyn said. "It's good for the prostate."

The honey industry itself hasn't been so healthy as of late.

The sluggish economic times have been hard on beekeepers, and bugs from overseas are depleting bee populations in some areas, said Laurence Cutts, president of the Florida State Beekeepers Association.

"The price of honey is lower than the cost of production, so beekeepers are going out of business," Cutts said. "Then, there's the varroa mite. That's a pest that came out of Asia, and it's extremely deadly to European honey bees, which is what we have here."

The Purkises say they battled a "black bug," which Cutts said could be the varroa mite, roughly the size of a small flea, or the small-hive beetle, about the size of a ladybug.

One catastrophic problem the Purkises haven't reported is the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has done in other beekeepers.

"The bees just disappear," Cutts said. "They leave the hive and don't come back. They haven't been able to find any smoking gun or bullet that's causing it."

If the family business is as durable as its patriarch, Alwyn's son Barry, who runs the business, will be busy.

Although he suffered a couple of strokes in 2004, Alwyn doesn't look as though he has ever lost a hair, and his offbeat, deadpan sense of humor is as keen as ever.

Next month, nieces and nephews from Purkis' native Canada - as well as children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren - are expected at the Purkises' property off Trilby Road for a birthday party.

He is as much an optimist as he is a fan of Hugh Hefner's publication.

To hear Alwyn tell it, bee stings are as beneficial as their nectar and help explain his longevity.

As the rest of the family sees it, though, Guadalupe has been as helpful to Alwyn as the bees.

The couple met in Fort Myers about 1965, when he was taking Spanish classes with Guadalupe's brother-in-law.

"She was sitting in a chair, just like that," Alwyn said, nodding toward Guadalupe, sitting nearby with one leg over the other. "Except, maybe she had on a little shorter skirt.

"I saw those knees."

Ross, a retired electrician, said his father's unusual diet might also explain his long life.

"When I was a teenager, he'd eat hamburgers uncooked - just raw hamburgers," he said. "He'd eat a jar full of kippers, too."

Kippers, if you don't know, are herring.

"He'll eat a baked potato with a pound of sour cream and two pounds of butter," Ross said.

"But I won't eat any of those foods with small print," Alwyn said. "I think they're trying to poison me."

"I'm not kidding."

As the family spoke, the phone rang loudly - loud enough for a 94-year-old to hear.

It rang again.

"That could be the telephone," said Ross, his delivery drier than a biscuit without honey.

Alwyn apparently has passed on his deadpan sense of humor, as well as the family business.

He grinned as Guadalupe picked up the receiver.

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or gfox@tampatrib.com. Keyword: Everyday People, to see an interview with Alwyn Purkis.

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