Solemnly sweet: A historic Milwaukee cemetery has its own honey, and millions of hardworking bees

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — For 175 years, Forest Home Cemetery has been a final resting place for generations of Milwaukeeans.

While it's typically quiet, the rooftop of the cemetery's maintenance building is literally buzzing every summer - topped with a million-and-a-half bees working hard on honey.

Fairy Garden Hives, the beekeeping team of Chad Nelson and Barbie Brennan Nelson, has been harvesting Forest Home Cemetery honey for nearly a decade.

"Yeah, people are dying to get that honey," Chad laughed.

The couple started beekeeping in their backyard, and yielded thirty gallons of honey their first year.

"'any idea what you were getting into?" asked reporter, Jenna Wells.

"Absolutely not!" Chad said. "I was kind of allergic to bees, so lets give that a shot too, right?"

After creating the Fairy Garden Hives brand, they looked for ways to expand.

Barbie happens to be on the board a Forest Home Cemetery, and she read an article about a Brooklyn cemetery that makes honey.

 "I figured, hey, we've got about 200 acres here at forest home, we're a level 2 arboretum, we could do that too," Barbie said. "Thus, Silent City Honey was born."

Each week from May through September, Chad visits the cemetery hive boxes to check on the bees' progress.

"It takes a lot of work. It's not as romantic as one would think," Chad said. "It's just lifting blocks and bricks that sting you." 

So far, Forest Home has been a perfect place to beekeep.

"There's over 2,500 trees that are over 175 years old, so it makes a huge difference in nectar flow," Chad explained. "It seems to be a perfect relationship with the bees and all the flowering trees."

Chad and Barbie bottle the Silent City Honey back at home, and sell it at the cemetery office and on their website.

"There's so many people in Milwaukee and Wisconsin who have a connection to this cemetery," Barbie said. "It really makes it a special kind of souvenir they can have." 

All the profits are gifted back to Forest Home, a place that means a lot to the couple.

"My great-great grandfather was one of the first people to buy a plot here in 1853," Barbie said. "We got married in the beautiful historic old chapel, and it's just a way of continuing our relationship with the cemetery, and carrying it on into perpetuity." 

They want to show how beautiful a cemetery can be...

"There's nothing creepy. This isn't like the thriller video, bodies aren't going to start popping out of the ground," Barbie laughed.

...and how important it is to keep our pollinators happy.

"One-third of all food is pollinated from bees, specifically," Chad explained. "It really brings you into nature if you can take bees on and just learn from them."

Click here to learn more about Fairy Garden Hives.