THERE can be no other workforce in Bermuda more dedicated than that which slaves to the death for businessman Randolph Furbert.

The hundreds of thousands who graft around the clock for Mr. Furbert each has six legs, four wings and a life expectancy of six weeks.

The fruits of their labour are the honey and beeswax produced in around 260 hives from the Baselands to Dockyard, natural factories churning out hundreds of sweet gallons.

Mr. Furbert has kept bees since the summer of 1972. Thirty years on, the 57-year-old has expanded his business to the point where he has bought out others to become the biggest honey producer in the country.

"My passion is beekeeping and my aim is to turn honey into money," said Mr. Furbert. "A bee has to visit 4,000 flowers to make one tablespoon of honey, so there is a lot of work that goes into filling a 500-gallon tank."

Mr. Furbert's passion for beekeeping, his desire to keep the ancient craft alive on the island and his deep respect for the humble honeybee are all evident at Bee Honey House in Hamilton Parish, a museum and honey-processing plant rolled into one.

The Fractious Street premises not only holds the tanks, trays, combs, hoses and the extractor machine which are the tools of his trade, but also has a room which is effectively a shrine to the bee.

Among the memorabilia stored within are statuettes moulded from beeswax, jars of honey that Mr. Furbert has brought home from his extensive travels around the world and a framed photo on the wall of him wearing a 'beard' of bees - a picture that also graces his business card.

"I wanted to be the first Bermudian to wear a beard of bees, because I wanted to prove to people that bees will only sting you if they feel threatened," said Mr. Furbert. "At the Agricultural Show on April 17, 1986, I did it.

"I have very seldom been stung. If you have fear around bees, that is a good way to get stung.

"Bees sense fear and they feel threatened. Initially, I had some fear of bees. But once you put on a suit and a veil, it's better. Then you learn that when you get stung, it's your own fault." The beekeeper's defence is a 'smoker', a device which burns vegetative material such as straw or banana leaf and pumps out whiffs of cool smoke, which has a calming effect on the bees.

On top of each hive are 'supers', boxes into which frames of honeycomb are set and filled up with honey by the busy insects, who then cap their food store with wax.

At the time of the two honey harvests each year, Mr. Furbert and his helpers remove the combs, uncap them and place them in an extractor, a machine which spins round the combs at high speed, drawing out the honey by means of centrifugal force.

The sweet fluid is then heated to aid its flow and pumped through filters before being left to settle in tanks for three to four days, by which time it is ready to bottle.

The wax the bees make to build up and cap the combs is also a useful commodity. Mr. Furbert puts it under glass outside to allow the magnified sunlight to melt it into a liquid which he can pour into moulds.

Mr. Furbert, who served as president of the Bermuda Beekeepers' Association for more than a decade, is passionate about encouraging successors to ensure that Bermuda continues to have knowledgeable stewards of its bee population. The importance of that could not be exaggerated, he said.

"I do everything I can to foster the interests of beekeeping in Bermuda," he said. "If a country doesn't have bees, it's difficult to live without them. About a third of what we have on the table to eat is there because of honeybees - and most people don't realise that.

"They pollinate our fruit and vegetables in such a way that if we lost them, we would not enjoy the quality of life that we do. And bees are the only insects that produce something for mankind to eat.

"Everything that bees produce is useful. Even bee stings can be used to help people suffering from arthritis or multiple sclerosis."

Bees were introduced in Bermuda in 1616, when Robert Rich had some delivered to him from England by his brother Sir Nathaniel Rich. Bees were not imported into the American colonies until six years later. And records show that honey and beeswax were exported from the island as far back as 1622.

Mr. Furbert is seizing the initiative in protecting and nurturing that heritage by means of education. He gives lectures and tours to parties of schoolchildren in the grounds behind Bee Honey House, emphasising the importance of bees to humans.

Mr. Furbert, one of 11 children, said beekeeping had been in his family. "My father had a few hives and people used to need honey for sweetening, as in those days, in the late '40s, sugar was still rationed. My father taught me how to work hard.

"I started a trucking business in 1970 and two laters later I took up beekeeping. My brother helped me to harvest honey. I remember one year being really excited because I harvested 30 gallons of honey.

"I started to put my profits into beekeeping. When I had ten hives I wondered what it would be like to have 20. Then I went to 50 and another beekeeper sold out and then I was up to 100. Another one sold up and I had 150. Now I have about 260 hives in 25 apiaries (areas where hives are kept)."

Mr. Furbert said he believed the best Bermuda honey came from the nectar of the Mexican pepper, which flowers from September through late October and grows wild and widely in Bermuda. But it was a plant that many people were now trying to eradicate, he added.

That is one example of the environmental pressure on Bermuda's bees. Undeveloped land is disappearing fast, cultivated land is down to around 300 acres and nectar-producing plants are less prevalent in artificial landscapes. Also bees make a tasty snack for giant toads and kiskadees and their hives are sometimes raided by robbing ants.

But Mr. Furbert is still optimistic about the immediate future.

"The first crop of honey, taken at the end of July, was not as good as expected, because we had a dry summer," said Mr. Furbert. "They say 'April showers, May flowers', but there were no April showers this year.

"But all this rain we've been having is nothing but a blessing. The ground has been saturated. There should be a lot of moisture around when the Mexican pepper comes into flower. So we should have a very good crop of honey."

Beekeeping keeps Mr. Furbert as busy as his bees for six days a week, but that fits in nicely with his working philosophy.

"I'm looking for sweet success," he said. "Only in the dictionary does success come before work.

"I have to go around the hives and cut some trees and do some trimming. Sometimes the bees' flight paths can be hindered by bushes. I also try to keep the hives out of people's sight because not everyone likes bees as much as I do.

"It's like every other business, the better you manage it, the more successful you are likely to be."