NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. — Allen Walker found his start in beekeeping as a Boy Scout project. He bought two beehives from his uncle for $1. Walker has now been a full-time beekeeper for 55 years, and his orange honey is talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey’s favorite.

He has several hundred hives spread around Lee County. He once sold honey wholesale by the barrel, but it became harder to make money that way. Now he retails in several counties at fresh markets and health food stores.

“Our claim to fame is local honey,” Walker said. “Most of the table-grade honeys here are orange blossom, saw palmetto, wildflower and we have a specialty honey called black mangrove, a saltwater plant. It is sort of unique, different.”

Another claim to fame is that Oprah thinks his orange blossom honey is the best. A distributor from Boston assembled a boxed set of honey jars labeled “Honeys of the World;” a jar of Walker’s orange blossom honey was included, although Walker’s label was not on the jar.

When the distributor was on Oprah’s show, the star tasted the honey and declared the orange blossom the best she ever had.

“Orange blossom comes first in the season, immediately behind it is saw palmetto and immediately behind that is black mangrove,” Walker said. “Then there is a little lapse before the fall crop, which is all wildflower. They are totally separated by time. We move the hives four times.”

Pollination is a big business in Florida now but, except for one company, Walker does not use his hives for pollination.

“I do not do it because people grew reckless with their pesticides and I have to stay away from them,” he said. “One fellow at a seed pollination company (he allows to use his hives), they produce seeds. They’re very careful about their spray program and they don’t kill my bees, but most farmers don’t have the time to be that careful.”

Walker is particular about his bees. He also uses only queen bees from Hawaii because they are genetically free of African bees, which are aggressive where Hawaiian bees are gentle. “They charge quite a bit for them,” he said. “One queen is $17. I used to buy them for $1.25.”

He does not micro-mesh filter the honey nor take out the pollen. He does not cook it. He is a strong believer in honey’s health benefits.

“We don’t cook it, we don’t change the molecule of the sugar by heating it, we don’t filter it,” he said. “The only thing we do to our honey is warm it to 103 degrees so it will go through a sieve. That’s all the cleaning and all the filtering we do. We bottle it by hand.

“I take a big shot of it morning and night, every night. It helps you sleep … It’s been my life. I’ve raised my family and we’ve done well – we’re not rich people, but we get along – all because of bees and honey, and I’m grateful for it. I’m 68 years old; I’ve been doing it for 55 years. Honey is one of the best foods you can eat.”

Florida is one of the top five honey-producing states, according to the Florida State Beekeepers Assoc. Commercial beekeeping is not as prevalent as it once was, but backyard beekeeping is on the rise. The state has approximately 1,500 small-scale and 500 full-time commercial beekeepers.