John Clayton, better known to most of the world as Beemaster is a 46 year old Civilian Employee for the Department of Defence, as a Boiler Plant Operator for the United States Navy. Employed 17 years at Lakehurst Naval Engineering Center, Lakehurst, New Jersey and nearly 25 years experience in "Steam for heat" Generation.

Shown here in back 2002 is John holding a full frame of golden honey, using a set of Frame Grabbers in one hand and holding a smoker in the other. 

John was born and has lived his entire life in Lakehurst, NJ. His family has strong roots to the town and the area. He attended Lakehurst Elementary School and Central Regional High School, in Bayville, NJ where he gained a strong desire toward video-taping and photography.

John became interested in beekeeping at age 14 after helping a good friend tend to his 11 hives in a small back yard apiary. It was truly magical, like Winnie the Pooh. After that John began subscribing to "Gleanings" magazine: now known as Bee Culture Magazine.  John became fascinated in the wonderful world of the Honeybee and after reading every book that he could get his hands on, he finally got his first colony at age 18 and became interested in speaking to others about these marvelous creatures.

John's love for honeybee grew as he realized that honeybee are instinctually reactive, meaning they are compulsive inherently to the point that you almost always determine how they will react under any given situation. Knowing what the bees will do is a great way to improve your skills as a beekeeper. His own theories exceed standard beekeeping techniques and tries to bring the beekeeper into the hive seamlessly and minimally invasive as possible.

"As a Beekeeper, it is your job to become another member of the hive - someone that the bees accept as part of their daily routine. If you treat the hives with respect, the bees will return the jesture. Knowing how to interact is like knowing how to break horses - it's a learned skill which can only happen when you start thinking like the honeybee. Anyone can rip a hive apart for inspection suited up like you are in a Three Mile Island Radiation chamber, but a true measure of your skills as a beekeeper comes when the bees respect your presence and this comes "only" through mutual trust."

Over the next 20 or so years, John continued beekeeping and began lecturing locally to schools, senior centers, agricultural centers and Libraries. Meanwhile he raised queens, collected swarms, and stayed active in beekeeping related matters. Always enjoying the chance to demonstrate his skills to schools whenever possible. Lecturing is easy and an entire section of the Beekeeping Course is dedicated to public speaking about beekeeping.

In 1996 www.beemaster.com was launched with a humble 5 pages, 10 photos and a handful of links. After a short time it became evident that John's site had made it's way toward the top of the "search engine hit list" and John needed to expand his site quickly to meet the needs of his visitors.

He also used emailed suggestions received to improve the look and content of his site. That holds true today as every email is answered personally and all suggestions are always used to help improve one of the largest personal websites on the Internet. the site.

Of course there is more to life than beekeeping - so John took on the daunting task of building a website that represented many of his other hobbies. Today, Beemaster.com has sections on web-site designing, digital photography, numerous travelogs, RVing, cooking, pets and nearly 30 other topics and is now over 270 pages with 1200 hi-res digital photos. 

Visitors average nearly 5500 a day and John receives nearly 100 emails daily, most related to the beekeeping section. Early in 1999, Beemaster.com became a "Yahoo! Site of the Week" and still continues to be one of the most visited beekeeping site on the internet.

In late February of 2004 John added Beemaster's Beekeeping Forum - the perfect means for beekeepers, students, teachers, parents, schools and anyone interested in honeybees or beekeeping a ONE-STOP place to share knowledge, ask questions, share photos, chat live and email or send private messages to the membership. The forum is growing quickly and it has a very easy to use interface, yet is extremely powerful allowing the users to easily communicate with other members and guests.

Besides Beekeeping, John has great interest in Digital Photography using his Olympus C3000z camera and "HTML Free" Website designing using Netscape Composer. This entire site, all 270 pages were created without knowing any HTML programming language - it was made just with Composer's easy drag and drop interface. You to can create your own powerful and interactive web sites without the need to learn any html code. There are lots of visual editors for designing pages and sites.

John also holds a General Class Amateur Radio License ( N2CIW ) and has been operating on the Ham Radio Frequencies for more that 28 years. John enjoys Morse Code Chatting and also long winded conversations with other Hams from around the globe. Today of course we can all talk via chatrooms and don't need radio to talk to anyone, but still the thrill and magic of radio is a great way to meet others. Times have changed but we all still strive to be closer to each other in this: The Communication Age.. 

John and his wife Tracey enjoy traveling around the United States. He offers an entire section of Travelogs to many of these great spots around the country. Expect this section to grow now that hi-res digital photography is part of John's Travel equipment.

In this photo John stands next to a fiber-glass fish, one of over 200 that are on display in Baltimore Inner Harbor.

I hope that this has helped you to know John Clayton a little better. To learn more, you need only read his website and share his passion for teaching and communication through photography and writing. John has kept this website commercial free to add merit to his message - and his massive site is totally family friendly and can be enjoyed by the youngest member of your family - that is his promise!

In 2003 John and Tracey bought a 37 foot Class A (Bus style) Motorhome and they now travel along the Eastern Coast of the US staying at RV Resorts and meeting new people from around the country. The motorhome (showing in the link above - along with several trips described there) is a real blessing and a wonderful way to travel and still have ALL the luxuries of home - and without dealing with hotels and baggage.

"My goal for Beemaster.com is to be the best website on beekeeping for the Student, teacher and hobbyist beekeeper on the Internet. It is a one-stop website to learn about bees, beekeeping and most importantly, get to meet hundreds of other beekeepers from around the globe and to share stories, questions and answers and beautiful photos."

PLEASE NOTE: John is not a Entomologist or Apiologists (simply put, not a doctor of insects studies or commercial bee breeder), his opinions and suggestions come from years of practical hands-on experience and from his many readings of material related to the proper care and understanding of honeybees. The Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum is an EXTENSIVE and UNIQUE environment - a collaboration of beekeepers with all levels of experience: the opinions there are just that "opinions" and although meant to be helpful, they most often come from practical experience and should be used for reference.

There are lots of great places on the web to get the extensively technical information, but if you want an interesting, humorous and insightful walk thru of a beekeeper's life, then this site may be perfect for you.