Nelson County Barn Quilt Trail Welcomes Kloten & Aneta!

The barn quilt pictured here, has been named "Honeymaker".  It was designed by Elizabeth Stromme of Kloten, ND.  Elizabeth shared the following information about her families bee business and the significance of her quilt which will be hung as soon as time permits.

Since l980, we have been in the bee business, we own and operate a family run Apiary.  My husband Brad started it out and now our son Nick has taken over.  The bees spend the summer here in NoDak and then they go out in November to California.  There, they wait to pollinate the almonds which starts after the first of the year.   Then, Spring in Texas, and in May they are trucked back to NoDak to start it all over again.      

The quilt represents the full circle of the life of a migratory beekeeper….in the symbol of the compass as it points in the cardinal directions.  The Honeycomb center symbolizes the innards of the hive, since that is where the comb is and where it is used for raising bees (the nursery)and also for storing the very important nectar that becomes Honey.   The bees circling around could be seen as doing the bee dance, which the bees do to message other bees as to where they should fly to find flowers, so they can gather nectar and make honey.   They do this in relation to the position of the Sun.   The very important center disk symbolizes the Sun, without which there would be no warm, hot summer days, days the bees are busy gathering pollen and nectar and making honey.     The four corners represent the flower source, here they could be seen as Sunflowers….pretty iconic of the prairie and makes good honey although sightings of sunflower fields now days is pretty rare and that is bad news for beekeepers.    

The "Honeymaker" will hang on the Old Hotel building in Kloten.  It will easily be seen as one drives through town going either south or north on Nelson County 5.

In the next few weeks we will feature a couple more barn quilts that have been hung near Aneta, ND. Aneta has several more quilts that will be hung next spring. All of the new quilts will be added to our map at it's next updating.

Again, welcome Kloten and Aneta to the Nelson County Barn Quilt Trail!