As beekeeping sees a rise in popularity in Sturgeon Bay, a local club is showing just how productive that can be. The Door County Beekeepers Club has hives on the grounds of Crossroads at Big Creek. They gave presentations to visitors during Saturday’s Pollenpolooza event, featuring two different kinds of hives. Member Dennis Marquardt demonstrated the differences between a flow hive and a Langstroth hive. Typically, it takes most of the summer for a honeycomb to yield its full potential, roughly 60 pounds of the sweet stuff. Marquardt says they’ve already done several times that.

He says that’s well above average production and attributes the success to the abundance of pollinating plants in the surrounding fields. In particular, Marquardt says bees are attracted to Queen Anne’s lace and ragweed. What is not great for allergy sufferers turns out to be a sweet treat for bees. Honey has a wide range of applications, from baking to providing relief for cold and flu sufferers.

Flow (R) versus Langstroth (L) hive