"The first time I visited Lake Geneva was for Winterfest with my sister. I was walking around town looking at the ice sculptures & stopped to take a photo with the bee sculpture outside Queen Bee Artisan Market. My grandmother always said, 'You’re the Busy Bee' to me while I was growing up. Later, I was going through the photos from the trip & saw a 'Shop for Sale' sign in the window behind me posing with the ice bee. I felt like it was a literal sign for the next chapter of my life.
Growing up in California, & attending college in Phoenix, I was familiar with big communities. Since I've been here, I'm experiencing what it feels like to be embraced by a small town. I'm starting to know people & embracing the ability to build a local network. With my background in community management, this is a really exciting experience for me.
While in college, I worked for a glass artist helping her with her show circuit. I am not a creative myself, but I was doing all of the tasks for her that would allow her time in the studio to create. While working with her at the shows, I started meeting other artists that needed administrative help. I found that I was adding a lot of value for these artists by helping out administratively so that they could focus on their craft.
Once I left school for nonprofit leadership, I started working in the nonprofit sector in Wisconsin for a housing organization. I ended up leading their retail initiative for many years. So then I was trained in retail management, but also had that community side. I loved my time there but I wanted to get back to working with artists. When I saw the shop for sale, I knew I could do that again. I do some of the administrative things for artists to allow them the time to keep creating.
When I bought the shop, I didn't really know why it was called 'Queen Bee Artisan Market', but I married into a Wisconsin maple syrup family, so one of the first products we brought in was our maple syrup. I wanted to round out the food offering, so I brought in a Wisconsin beekeeper producing mono-floral varietal honey. I wanted to be able to educate our customers about the honey, so I chatted with the beekeeper to learn all I could. Now, three years later, I'm a trained sensory analyst of honey with the Italian Board & the American Honey Tasting Society. A big aspect of what I'm doing with Queen Bee is honey tastings & selling Wisconsin honey.
The bee was always part of this journey, I just didn’t realize how important it would be." - Emily Trainor, Owner, Queen Bee Artisan Market