Beekeeper Hannah Sjostrom is working on an expansion plan for her family’s third-generation apiary in Maiden Rock, Wisconsin. Her family raises about 200 hives during the summer. In the winter, she sends them across the country to pollinate almonds. When the bees come back to Wisconsin, that’s when the expansion process starts.

“The last couple years have really been spent on making sure we have quality bees, so when we’re sending them out to California, when they come back, the goal is that the hives are going to be so big and healthy, we can split them in half,” she explains. “Our goal for this next year… is to take as many hives as we can and split it into two to three more hives.”