How We Got Here
Our beekeeping journey has been a generational endeavor and this is where our journey begins.
The First Generation...
In the coal filled mountains of West Virginia, a six foot tall coal miner by the name of Virgil Stover, my grandfather, started toying with keeping bees. In many ways the old ways are far mor simpler. After being medically discharged from the military because of a train accident that killed most of his recruit class on the the way to basic training, he returned to the small mountain community of Clear Creek, West Virginia. It was here that he started toying with bee keeping. His beekeeping wasn't what we know today as beekeeping. My grandfather used a hollowed out tree for his bee hive up in the holler.
The Second Generation...
My dad saw his father come and go from the deep mines of the West Virginia mountains and knew early on that it wasn't what he wanted to do with his life. Once he graduated from high school, Clarence Stover, my father, joined the United States Navy. On his post WWII tour in the Navy, he learning to repair the fabric covered wings of F4U Hellcats while being stationed in North Africa. When his tour was over he left the Navy to return to the mountains of West Virginia. Finding very little work in the area, he went Cincinnati to work in a steel mill.
After six months he decided to rejoin the military, but joined the United State Air Force where he would serve during Korea as a hydraulic mechanic on B-29 refueling plane ferrying F-105 fighters to Korea and F-100 fighters back to the United States. He then went on to serve on a communication detail for Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger relaying communications back to the United States.
During the Cold War Era, Clarence was stationed at Andrews Air Force Base (Joint Base Andrews) where he was in a elite unit known as Night Watch and worked with Boeing to design the current aircraft being used by the squadron.
Clarence retired in July of 1976 and moved to Alabama where he took up his fathers hobby of beekeeping for a while in the early 1980's. But after loosing his hives he got out of the hobby.
The Next Generation...
After growing up in rural Alabama, in 2016, I became interested in farming. Growing up with friends that had family farms, I began to talk to several friends and going to the local Extension Office to learn more about livestock farming.
In 2017, I let a friend talk me into getting a couple of bee hives with the promise he would help me get started. Unfortunately, he moved to North Carolina and I was left on my own. I joined the local Beekeeper club in hopes of gaining knowledge only to loose both hives the same summer.
The thing that was the most memorable when I started my beekeeping adventure was the excitement of my father when he found out I was getting bee's. He was excited that the family tradition was continuing and was hoping for my success over his failure. He offered nothing but support both mentally and financially.
In 2019, I let a co-worker talk me into taking a package of bee's that had been mistakenly ordered for him. In the two years off from beekeeping, I had attended a lot of YouTube University and learned a lot from my previous mistakes.
In 2019, we launched our honey label "Alabama Bee Girlz and Dad" as well as dabbling in YouTube under the same name.
Since 2019 we have grown from one package of bees to doing swarm catches, hive cut-outs and honey production. Today, we have over 20 hives and are continuing to grow.
In 2026, we are preparing to re-launch our honey brand as "Southern Stinger Honey" as we move towards local distribution point and expanding our services and product lines.
Pure Honey with a Southern Attitude
“The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee, a clover, anytime, to him, is aristocracy.”
–Emily Dickinson