The Fairfield Museum Shop
located on 370 Beach Street in Fairfield is all abuzz with a new selection of
bee-related items including honey produced by their own honeybees!
This
year, for the first time, the Museum raised bees near the 1750 Ogden House in
keeping with their mission to explore the past and to imagine the future.
The museum has used bees to pollinate the colonial garden and has
harvested the honey in much the same way as our ancestors did.
The Ogden House located
on 1520 Bronson Rd., is an authentic saltbox home with a colonial kitchen
garden containing plantings dating back to the home’s origin. Visitors to the
garden can see replica straw bee skeps that represent the importance of
beekeeping in the colonies in terms of pollination and wax production, as well
as the medicinal, culinary, and household uses of honey. In fact, apple
trees and honeybees used to pollinate trees were brought across the Atlantic in
the early 1600s so settlers could make cider because water was not considered
portable. Honey
was used to preserve food, weatherproof leather and medicinally to
help prevent infection.
Today, visitors to the
gift shop at the Fairfield Museum will find the museum's newly harvested
honey along with bee-themed tea towels, coasters, and pure beeswax
candles. In addition to these "sweet" products, the museum shop
offers an interesting selection of locally made items such as art by Michael
Michaud and beach inspired jewelry.
In conjunction with the
Museum's current maps exhibit, There’s a Map for That! the
Museum Shop offers map themed pieces such as passport covers, journals,
and flasks. Specialty jewelry items from CHART metalworks, including
pendants, earrings and key chains, exclusively designed for the Museum, feature
maps of Fairfield Beach and Southport Harbor.
The Fairfield Museum Gift
Shop is open daily from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. and weekends from 12 p.m. - 4 p.m. For
more information visit www.fairfieldhistory.org.
