Chicago Roof Top Honey
If you’re sweet on local food, try Chicago-made honey.
The Chicago Honey Co-op maintains 100 beehives producing natural honey on the derelict site of a Sears Roebuck warehouse in North Lawndale. Founded by Michael Thompson in 2004 as part of the Sweet Beginnings program of the North Lawndale Employment network, the cooperative began by training ex-convicts and other low-income Chicagoans as beekeepers.
In summer, its honey is flavored by clover and basswood, while in autumn, it tastes of wild asters and goldenrod.
Chicago Honey Co-op products are sold at several farmers’ markets, including the year-round Green City Market, and at a handful of shops around town, among them The Goddess and Grocer.
You can also get a pot of urban honey from the gift shop at Garfield Park Conservatory, which harvests the sweet product of its own hives.
Both are pricey — $10 to $15 per pound — but probably your best bet to taste city honey made by Chicago bees.
Unless you have the clout to get some of the Roof Top honey from the municipal hives atop City Hall.
Those hives were installed in 2003 in the mayor’s rooftop garden, from whence the honeybees range to flowerbeds in Grant Park and along Michigan Avenue.
Da Mare’s honey is often sold at exclusive charity auctions, but intrepid honey hunters can sometimes find it at shops in Gallery 37 (where the honey is processed) and the Chicago Cultural Center. There are beehives atop the Cultural Center, too.
One more urban apiary is at North Park Village Nature Center. Most of its honey goes home with center volunteers, but they do pass out samples during occasional educational programs about honeybees.
