Walter Graham Arader, 95, former Pa. state official

FOUR DAYS before his 96th birthday, Walter Graham Arader died Monday at his Radnor home, but his lifelong love of beekeeping and organic vegetable gardening lives on in his four children.

Arader, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1942, served in the Navy during World War II and was a successful businessman, Pennsylvania secretary of commerce and securities commissioner.

But he never lost touch with his six acres of land.

"He was always rototilling," said Arader's son Alexander. "I remember back in the '70s, we'd compost all our scraps before anybody was talking about composting.

"He had three massive gardens and all his [14] grandchildren used to come and help him dig potatoes. We have photos of little babies holding up onions. We'd come in with armfuls of lettuce, soybeans, peas, and big potatoes."

One of the gardens was only planted in corn. "He set it up so one kind of corn would come in, we'd harvest and eat all that, and then another variety would come in," Alexander said. "Same with tomatoes.

"He planned it so there was always work to be done, and always this great abundance of marvelous produce."

Unfortunately, Alexander said, the property's critters demanded a share of the abundance.

"After all the hard work, nothing breaks your heart like having a raccoon come in and take one bite out of every ear of corn." Alexander said, laughing. "It used to drive us crazy.

"We'd try to outsmart the animals, but after a few years my father said, 'Well, maybe we should just grow enough to feed them, too.' So his garden got bigger every year."

Arader was equally passionate about beekeeping. He bought antique scales and placed one under each beehive.

"This is exactly the kind of man he was," Alexander said. "He would go out with a flashlight every single night and weigh the hives. Then he would chart the weights by hand on graph paper.

"He demonstrated that 90 percent of the net increase in each hive's weight occurred in a five- to six-week period during May, June, and July. The beekeeper works throughout the entire year to get the maximum population of the hive during that five- to six-week period of nectar flow."

His dad did that, Alexander said, by fooling the queen bee.

"Weeks before the nectar flow," Alexander said, "you start feeding the bees outside with a mixture of hot water and sugar. The bees drink that and it brings them into the hive, which sends a message to the queen that there's nectar out there weeks before there really is nectar out there. The queen starts laying more eggs than she would otherwise."

By the time nectar really starts to flow weeks later, the queen has birthed an army of workers.

"They darken the air, furiously collecting the nectar and bringing it back," Alexander said.

In 1984, his dad's 22 active hives produced more than 1,600 pounds of honey.

"He always said, 'Let's see if we can get a ton of honey one year,' " Alexander said. "We never got there, but we got close."

Alexander said that during the '70s, when his dad served as Pennsylvania secretary of commerce under Gov. Milton Shapp and then as securities commissioner, "he made the hour-and-a-half to two-hour schlep to Harrisburg every day and then came home to work in his garden. He said he had some of his best ideas while he was rototilling."

Arader lived amid his gardens and bees in a modern house designed by his wife of 60 years, Jean Travnikar, an artist who died in 2010.

Besides his son, he is survived by two other sons, W. Graham Arader III and Christopher M. Arader; a daughter, Georgeann Arader Berkinshaw; 14 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Services: Service of Catholic Burial, 11 a.m. Saturday, St. Katharine of Siena Church, 104 S. Aberdeen Ave., Wayne. Burial in Calvary Cemetery, Conshohocken.

Donations may be made to Harriton House, 500 Harriton Rd., Bryn Mawr, Pa. 19010, where a beekeepers' club that Arader started still exists.

geringd@phillynews.com

On Twitter: @DanGeringer