Dean Hoover: All about milk, honey and mathematics

Milk and honey are just one piece of Dean Hoover's story.

At Cadbury at Lewes, where Hoover settled with his wife, Sharon, for a peaceful retirement near the water, he's well known as the bee man.

On the second floor of the main building of the retirement community, a soft buzz fills a small library. At the window, honey bees fly in and out, maneuvering their way through plastic tubes and into a glass-paned observational hive that has become an educational opportunity for residents, staff and visitors.

“Its primary purpose is education,” Hoover said of the hive that's home to thousands of bees. “Secondary, they pollinate. So all of Lewes and the surrounding area, they're pollinating flowers and gardens and crops. Third is honey.”

The bees are steadily at work adding to the comb bases installed in their year-old home. Next to them, Hoover is also busy at work, reviewing data, charts and visitor logs that give a glimpse into the bees' work lives throughout the months and the rain, heat and wind that come with changing seasons.

Hoover is calm, yet fiercely focused on the inner workings of hundreds of bees that make their way in and out of Cadbury and surrounding gardens. He peers through the hive, searching out drone bees to show how much larger they are than the worker bees. Clumps of pollen are stuck to little legs – different colors indicate which plants were fruitful – and Hoover has a book of pollen identifications to decipher which plants are proving plentiful.

“Do you see this bee wiggling?” Hoover said, pointing to a worker bee doing a dance on the hive's combs. That bee is letting the others know where the good pollen is, he said, and the direction of the dance and how long it wiggles tells exactly where and how far away the premium pollen is.

“It has been a great success in terms of education,” he said. During events at Cadbury, there's a constant stream of people checking out the hive, and the visiting grandchildren and great-grandchildren love every second of it, he said.

When the Hoovers moved to Cadbury in 2007, Dean seriously considered sneaking in his own beehive to keep in their apartment. Sharon wouldn't have minded one bit, she said with a smile.

“The bees are fine,” she said in full support of her husband, to whom she has been married to for 57 years. “We've done all this sort of thing all our lives.”

They're both academics by trade, but there's something whimsical about the Hoovers. Both are highly educated, well-spoken, but they are kind and light-hearted. Both Dean and Sharon seem to have a deep understanding of how plants, bees and the world around them are just as important as lessons found in the pages of textbooks.

Beekeeping was something Hoover picked up later in life, while living in an isolated area southwest of the Finger Lakes region of New York. His grandfather was a beekeeper, he said, but he passed when Hoover was a young boy. He learned the trade from a neighboring commercial beekeeper, and when he wasn't teaching mathematics at Alfred University, he tried to cultivate his own honey.

That is, until the bears showed up.

He started small, with about 10 hives, which housed about 10,000 bees each. It didn't take long for the black bears, who were already familiar with the Hoovers' home, porch and birdfeeders, to demolish the hives and take their honey.

“I wasn't going to battle them,” he said.

At the time, the Hoovers lived about 30 minutes away from the university, where Sharon also worked as a writing professor, and lived along protected state forest lands and farmlands. After the bears came, Hoover decided to call it quits with the bees for a while. And when the two decided to retire in a more populated community – they were living miles away from any stores or hospitals – Hoover thought it could be the perfect opportunity to explore an observational hive.

But bees aren't the only thing that keep Hoover busy in retirement.

He gets excited about his little honeymakers, but his face really lights up when he's in the quiet woodshop at Cadbury, surrounded by the scent of wood shavings.

Hoover's father was a carpenter and farmer by trade, two skills that Hoover has honed over the years. By the time he reached high school, Hoover was running the 75-acre family farm, milking cows and tending crops on his own while his father earned a living woodworking.

He lent a hand with that, too, building barns, garages and furniture with his father. Now, his pieces line the halls of Cadbury, and fill the homes of friends and relatives.

A stand-up desk made of pale blonde wood sits ready and waiting to be picked up. A beautiful grandfather clock greets residents and visitors near the main dining hall. And two-toned canes are readily available, just as soon as Hoover can piece them together.

Hoover doesn't need a cane, though. He moves easily through the woodshop, an addition he requested of the Cadbury builders before moving in. He points out all of the heavy machinery, most of which he brought; at least one piece belonged to his father. Cadbury is working to fill the space with community equipment, Hoover said, but he still contributes the majority of woodworking tools and pieces in the shop.

He bends down and pulls out a large box of wood veneer pieces; cedar scents and the smell of fresh wood drift through the air. He shows the difference between the grain of sandalwood and a piece of redwood, and then gets a little technical.

He has a hinged mirror, which easily keeps him entertained for hours. The studied mathematician – who, as a retired professor, teaches geometry, calculus and other math classes through Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Delaware in Lewes - uses the mirror and the patterned veneer pieces to show the range of possibilities of designs.

“The symmetry and patterns and geometric shapes attract me,” he says, moving each side of the mirror just a bit, completely changing the pattern found in the wood grains, which he could use for a new table top or desk.

Looking at his mirror and the various shapes, he said, “Sometimes that's where furniture starts."

Hoover's woodshop has provided an opportunity for other woodworkers to continue their craft in retirement. His beehive has kept a little bit of farm life in his new home. And the learning never stops for Hoover and the dozens of people who have attended his math classes.

From blueberries to bees and cows to college classes, Hoover has continued mastering the craft, whatever it may be.

“I always wanted the thing I was doing to be productive,” he said.

The couple has seen the lands around them being developed, but from their plant-filled balcony at their cozy Cadbury apartment, they have a direct view of untouched farmland. The crops are shooting up, the bees are buzzing and the Hoovers are happy with their move to the First State.

“Cadbury has been very good to us. They allowed me to do the bees,” Dean said.