Market stories: A sweet trip to Wolf Honey Farm

Throughout the production of Market, the crew has been traveling far and wide to visit local farmers and learn about their production processes. Earlier this month we packed a director, a host, a cameraman, an intern, and a photographer- along with all our production gear- into a van to meet up with Dale Wolf at his farm in Baldwin, WI. Dale gave us a full tour of his facility, which will be featured on an upcoming episode of Market.

Dale has been producing honey and other bee-related products for forty years, a skill he learned from his family as a young man. His honey has won dozens of local and national awards, and he sells literally hundreds of gallons of this liquid gold each week, both at the Farmers’ Market and at his self-serve honey stand.

When we arrived at Wolf Honey Farm we were treated to plenty of whimsical decorations and bee related jokes, like a street sign showing we were at the intersection of Busy Bee Ave and Honeycomb St. Dale showed us a table where he was drying bee pollen in the sun, which is a popular nutritional supplement.

Soon we hopped back in the van to drive a few miles down the road to see Dale’s beehives. He had gathered enough bee suits for the crew, and despite the 90 degree day, everyone pulled on the coveralls and hoods to protect themselves from bee stings. Dale promised us that, on such a nice day, the bees would be plenty busy doing work and wouldn’t be too interested in stinging us- and indeed they were. No one was stung, and we got to enjoy some of the bees labor by eating warm honey straight out of a honeycomb! We all agreed that it was one of the most delicious things we’d ever tasted. During the shoot host Emily Noble even held a bee, and director David Zierrot got some extreme close-ups of the beehives with his mini HD camera.

After several hours learning about our buzzing friends the crew happily took off their bee suits and we returned once more to Dale’s honey stand. He showed us the many products he’s created, such as “Extra Virgin Honey” (unheated and untreated) and let Emily put on his bee hat for a closing shot. As we got back on the road to return our equipment to SPNN we made a quick detour for some relief from the heat, picking up root beer floats at the A&W stand down the road from the farm.

You can find Dale each weekend at the St Paul Farmers’ Market wearing his bee hat and peddling his wares. Watch for our super-sweet honey episode of Market soon!