DE PERE — The Baroun family has run a maple farm for decades in De Pere. Recently, there's a new buzz about the family business.
Back in 2017, the mother and daughter duo of Theresa and Alicia started their own line of honey products.
It's become so popular that they've had to make a few changes to their operations.
"Use of honey has gone up more and more because people want local honey so we were not producing enough for what we were selling so we decided to add on to the extra hives," said Theresa.
They're part of a growing movement nationally of local beekeepers. In the early 2000s there was concern about the decline of honeybees and production in the supply chain.
In recent years everyone from large rural farms to small urban apiaries have gotten in on the beekeeping craze.
"It started out as more of a hobby and then we've grown to love it even more," said Alicia.
Alicia said that they're still learning about different techniques to producing honey each year.
"Trying to figure out what works every year with the bees, because some years the bees need different things so it's kind of like a puzzle to figure out every year what works and what doesn't," said Alicia.
Theresa said she believes that steady increase in demand for local honey is partially because people are starting to use it for different health benefits because raw honey doesn't have the same additives as processed honey.
