News
April 17, 2019
It's been well over a year since I last posted something here. During the last many months things have been proceeding apace, and many things of importance have happened. The most exciting news is that we have been awarded a major grant with which to begin restoration of the honey house and wax shed. This is huge for us as it allows us to continue on our journey of getting these buildings restored and presenting them and the entire site to the public. We're so excited about this. Please check the "Restoration" page for progress as it unfolds.
September, 2017
Hofmann Apiaries was the subject of an article by Deanna Narveson published in the Mankato Free Press on September 4th. Deanna and her photographer, Pat Christman, visited with us in August to get an update on what's been happening at Hofmann Apiaries, and there is a link to the article below. Deanna and Pat couldn't have been nicer or more interested, and we were more than pleased with the article. Thanks to Deanna, Pat, and the Mankato Free Press for the article.
April 14
We are pleased to say that we have entered into an agreement with the US Fish & Wildlife Service and their Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program to receive help with managing our CREP prairie acreage. For optimum health a prairie should be burned off every three or four years. Ours is at that four year mark and badly needs burning. Thanks to this agreement we will now have help with a burn and maintenance mowing. The site will also be over seeded with flowers that will benefit native pollinators such as wild bees and monarchs. In addition, we will be able to plant alsike clover on a strip of easement land between our two CREP plots. This is great news as, thanks to my grandfather, Emil Hofmann, alsike clover became a major crop in the area for many years in the teens and 20s. It's a nod to Hofmann Apiaries history (see the History PDF for the whole story) and we're more than pleased about this.
March 13
Curt Brown, who writes a Minnesota History column for the Star Tribune newspaper, devoted this week's column to The Hofmann Apiaries and our inclusion on the National Register. You can read it here: www.startribune.com/minnesota-history-bee-operation-joins-historic-register/371888101/
Today, February 4, 2016, we received official notice from the Minnesota Historical Society that Hofmann Apiaries has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and we are pleased beyond measure. The effort to get this accomplished began in the summer of 2010 when Joan Mooney, Co-Executive Director of the Waseca County Historical Society, took a tour of the honey house. While gazing about in wonder and appreciation on the third floor of that building, she responded to my comment regarding the building’s questionable condition by stating emphatically, “Oh, you have to save this!” It all started, literally, at that moment, and little did we realize what those words would lead to and what would take place over the next five years. It’s been a long and sometimes difficult journey with other people doing most of the heavy lifting, but we have now finally reached our first goal. With luck, hard work, and more help from others we will see our hopes realized of bringing Hofmann Apiaries back to a fully functioning apiary and learning center.
LH