Farms to Food - Marsden's Pure Honey

The Dane County Farmers' Market is a "producer only" affair. Basically that means the vendor needs to have grown or raised any product he or she is selling at the market. So how is it that for the past five years Dale Marsden, well known as the man with the bee hive hat at Marden's Pure Honey, has been selling lemons at the market?

For the past 50 years Marsden, of McFarland, WI, has been the proud owner of a single lemon tree. And when it bears fruit you're likely to see lemons for sale alongside his honey.

"My sister gave me that tree when I was around 12 years old," Dale explains." About five years ago I started bringing lemons to the market."

Granted, the tree never produces a profusion of fruit. "A couple of years ago there were around 20 lemons on it," says Dale. "Last year there were seven or eight." The jury is still out on this year's lemon crop but Dale expects to be bringing a few to market, as he did several weeks ago.

Dale has kept the tree in his home except for time during the seven years he was in the Air Force, when it set down roots at his parent's house. "One time I came home and it was in the cellar," he says, continuing, "It had been down there for about a year in a pot with dirt. I just watered it well and it came back to life."

Commenting on pollinating the tree Dale remarks, "This year I had a good day. I just set it outside where hundreds of bees pollinated the thousands of flowers on it."

Dale assures us that honey from those hives won't taste like lemon. "Citrus honey doesn't really have a lemony flavor," he explains. "The Florida honey doesn't taste like oranges."

Most of the honey sold by Marsden's Pure Honey has a butterscotch, wild flavor. Today as he's done for the past 35 years, Dale keeps at least 50 hives. Many can be found at his place in McFarland, where he also tends a small orchard. Other hives he takes to Northern Wisconsin, where he distributes them among six or so counties.

The different locations bring in different tasting honey. The northern hives produce a lemony flavored honey from basswood. They also produce honey made from knapweed and Wild Bergamot. Closer to home, the honey is made from clover, wildflower, and basswood. "Once in a while I'll get dandelion," he says. "It depends on the year. Every year I get something different.

"The bees will sometimes skip a certain place," he continues. "They'll bring a different honey in this year than they did last year. It depends on the weather."

Dale has been bee keeping since he was a sophomore in high school. When asked why he raises bees he says with a smile, "Well, I like honey. And I like the different flavors." A retired Air Force navigator, Dale has been coming to the DCFM for the past 26 years. In addition to honey he also brings handmade beeswax candles, comb honey, pollen, and propolis. During the summer season he'll bring peaches, apples, and plums from his small orchard.

While you might assume that the bees hibernate or simply die off in the winter, you'd be incorrect. Like most of us, right now the bees are busy just trying to stay warm.

"In the winter they're set in the hives and they'll stay in there," Dale explains. "They cluster real tight together and keep the brood nest around 90 degrees by burning honey. They're eating honey all winter."

Dale supplements the honey with around 20 pounds of sugar syrup in the fall and 50 to 60 pounds of honey and sugar syrup, plus dry sugar during the winter.

This February while Dale's bees are busy staying warm, his lemon tree is in the middle of fruiting. He's not too sure how many lemons he'll get this year but then, that's not really the point. He simply loves to garden and to tend to his bees.

"I grew up gardening all the time," he says. I keep about 50 fruit trees on my farm. I kind of wished I had an orange tree but I never got around to that." With his green thumb and decades-long success bee keeping, we think if he were to have raised an orange tree we'd be making a frothy glass of orange juice to go along with that lemon pie, ingredients courtesy of Marsden's Pure Honey.

For More Information:
Marsden's Pure Honey
608-838-3992
bluebee@madtown.net