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Now retired, Stormer continues to keep as busy as a bee by raising colonies of the social, honey-producing insects.
Currently, the beekeeper has 15 to 20 colonies at each of the seven different locations, or yards as he calls them.
One would imagine dealing with thousands of insects armed with stingers would be enough interaction with nature's creatures. However, each day Stormer must check his home yard to see if the bears have vested an interest in the honey.
"The out yards are positioned so the land owners can see the colonies so they can notify me if anything goes wrong. I usually visit my out yards on a three-week cycle," Stormer said. "The nice thing about this hobby is that you don't have to do it daily or weekly."
A charged barb wire fence is placed around the bee yards to ward off any interested bears. One of the first responsibilities when checking the yard is to make sure the fence is secure.
"Several times a year I wrap strips of bacon on the wire. When the bear eats it, he gets zapped, and it trains them to stay away," Stormer said. "The Game Commission is also very helpful when I have problems with bears. Many times they assist by setting traps and leaving them for a week."
If you let the bee be, the bee will let you be. If you don't, then it is best to have a bee smoker.
As a safety precaution, Stormer burns tree bark and paper to send smoke signals to the bees as he enters the colonies. When a hive is threatened, bees release a pheromone-like substance which is called an alarm odor. This odor alerts the middle-aged bees, the most venomous, to defend the hive by attacking the intruder. The smoke dulls the bees senses and stops them from sounding the alarm.
Once the parameter of the yard is checked, the beekeeper walks among the colonies with a device which produces smoke from paper and tree bark.
The colonies look like miniature skyscrapers of wooden boxes stacked on top of one another. Inside the boxes are the bees' home. Inside each box are wooden frames which hold comb-like cells where the bees reproduce and create honey.
"I give all the colonies a quick visual to check the bee flight at every entrance and make a mental note of the strongest and weakest colonies," Stormer said.
To this experienced beekeeper, beekeeping is a hobby with a purpose.
"When I was a teenager, I produced comb honey and extracted honey for income to buy more beekeeping supplies," Stormer said. "My primary reason for raising bees in the past 10 years has been to try to develop a strain of honeybees that are naturally resistant, or immune, to many of the diseases, viruses and pathogens prevalent today."
In short, his goal is to get "the best of the best."
Coming through the last winter with 108 colonies after 20.5 percent losses, Stormer shrugs off his success rate. However, many locals average 50 percent losses.
Stormer added, many professors of Entomology from Penn State also find it difficult to maintain colonies at this rate.
"Depending on the time of year, an over-wintered colony can have anywhere from 25,000 bees in the spring, and can peak by summer at 60,000, plus," Stormer said. "The size of the colony also depends on the ability of the queen to lay eggs and to find empty cells to lay in. Also, nectar and pollen need to be coming in steady to support the development of the bee larvae."
Up until about 2000, Stormer kept colonies from local surviving bees. In 2001, he tried 13 Canadian Buckfast queen bees, developed by Brother Adam, a monk from England's Buckfast Abbey. Stormer praises the bees as being "a big improvement" to his colonies.
When you go in search of honey, you must expect to be stung.
As a child, Stormer wore a simple, protective head covering when going into the hives. Now that his hobby has grown into a near obsession; he goes in with a full body suit and thinks nothing of being surrounded by thousands of buzzing bees.
"I probably get stung about once every two weeks, occasionally, several times in a day. However, that's when I'm spending quite a few hours with them," Stormer said. "On a whole, when you consider how many bees I 'visit,' I get stung very seldom."
