ROBERTSDALE — Rex (Reginald) Aldridge’s love for bees began early.

“I was eight years old,” Aldridge recalled while sitting in his Robertsdale home. “My neighbor had a lot of bees.”

Aldridge says he spent every free moment watching the hives.

The young Aldridge’s father traded a bushel of potatoes for a “box of bees.” And Aldridge, now 90, embarked on a lifelong hobby.

“I kept bees except when I was in the Army,” said Aldridge, explaining he was part of the Omaha Beach landing on D-Day during World War II. He survived the bloody assault and says he earned five Bronze Stars.

But, he could not wait to come back to his bees. As soon as he got back from the war, he was back to keeping the insects, which some say have been used by people for more than 8,000 years.

“You get a gene in you, a special love for bees,” said Aldridge, adding that while he’s helped more than 100 others get started beekeeping, only about five are active today.

He was named Alabama's “Beekeeper of the Year” in 2010 by the Alabama Beekeepers Association, but keeping bees has not always been easy, especially lately.

Part of the problem, Aldridge says, are the Varroa mite and the tracheal mite. The two pests and Africanized honeybees have taken a toll on hives.

Aldridge knows that firsthand.

“At one time I had 30 hives. When the mites came I found that all but one had died.”

The Varroa mite, however, might be susceptible to a little natural genetic engineering.

“They have found that in Russia, the bees live with the (Varroa) mite,” Aldridge said. “We have been importing Russian queens for our hives.”

While bees are small, and a nuisance at picnics, they are important to crops and plants. Beside their delicious honey, Aldridge says that “one out of every three mouthfuls” of food we eat had a bee somewhere in its production.

Crops like cantaloupe and cucumber, among others, absolutely need honeybees to pollinate their flowers to produce food, he added.

Aldridge keeps one hive in his backyard, designing its surroundings so neighbors would not know there was a hive nearby. The rest of his hives are put to work in area farmers’ fields.

Aldridge and others teach a beekeeping class on the first Monday of the month at the Robertsdale fire station.

In fact Aldridge and the Baldwin County Beekeepers Association have helped the Robertsdale Volunteer Fire Department obtain five “bee suits,” which will enable a first responder to deal with an emergency involving bees without getting hurt.

“You need one to handle bees,” said Aldridge.

While it may not seem that there would be much call for bee gear with first responders, Africanized honeybees are spreading into the area.

The bees come from Africa by way of Brazil, where they were being studied. They have been on the move north ever since.

Africanized bees have been spreading into the United States, and Aldridge says they have spread from Louisiana to California.

The variety is more aggressive than normal honeybees. Experts tell them apart from other bees by close inspection of their wings.

“If you open a hive (of normal honeybees) 10-12 come out,” said Aldridge. “If you open an African hive, 10,000 come out. People have to learn to be real careful.”

Because of the African bees’ ferocity, and overwhelming response to slight provocation, it’s important to have trained beekeepers with protective gear deal with the swarm.

Aldridge says the Africanized bees produce about as much honey and other compounds (such as wax) as normal bees, but are incredibly difficult to handle.

They also “swarm” or look for new places to live more frequently, partly because, Aldridge added, a regular honeybee hive will have several “queen cells,” with future queens incubating. When the first queen hatches, she kills her sisters.

In an Africanized hive all the queen cells hatch and each takes members of the hive with them when they mature. This means the hives spread faster, but because there are fewer bees in each hive, there is less honey produced.

Africanized bees will also take over a hive, killing the existing queen and installing their own queen in an insect palace coup.

There are African colonies in Florida as well, and a watch is being kept to try to prevent those bees from coming to Alabama. One hive was found recently in the Mobile area, and Aldridge says it probably hitched a ride aboard a ship coming to the harbor.

“There’s more you can learn from bees,” said Aldridge. “I learn something new every day.”