A Sweet Retirement

Pictured above, the retired bricklayer calmly splits a hive of bees.

Local 21 IL retiree John Koumbis keeps ‘busy as a bee’ since hanging up his tools three years ago. A beekeeper from the age of nine, Koumbis now looks after a total of 75 individual beehives.

“I learned both my trade and my lifelong hobby of beekeeping in Greece and it did not take long to transfer these skills to my new life here in America. In fact, I was laying brick in Chicago two days after I arrived here in 1967,” says Koumbis.

Although Koumbis describes the honey his hives produce as only a side benefit of his hobby, friends and family agree that his homemade honey is the sweetest.