City Park abuzz with Honey Fest
Annual fest a successBy DAVE PAYNE Sr., dpayne@newsandsentinel.com
Article Photos
PARKERSBURG - The faces of beekeepers were a little brighter this year at the 28th annual West Virginia Honey Festival, which was held in City Park over the weekend.
For the beekeepers, this season was a good year compared to the dismal days of hive die-offs last year, one of the worst years for beekeeping in recent memory.
In the fall of 2006, queens shut down egg production because of a lack of nectar and the hives entered the winter with older bees. As those bees died, the winter clusters shrank and consumed nearby honey inside the hive. The clusters were so small, bees starved even with honey elsewhere in the hive. During an exceptionally warm early winter, they consumed more honey than usual. Late winter was exceptionally cold and winter was followed by a spring freeze. That was followed by drought.
This year, beekeepers have been recovering, said Paul Poling, state apiarist. Aiding with the recovering have been state programs to provide corn syrup (for bees to consume), mite treatment and even bees at low cost to the state's beekeepers, he said.
"The hives have been more prosperous this year and are full of bees. All in all, things have been looking good," he said.
Unlike the Honey Bee Expo, a beekeeper event held later in the year, the annual honey festival is geared for the general public - to educate people about bees and the health benefits of consuming honey. The two-day event included numerous demonstrations to teach people about bees and honey.
One constant through the festival's three decades has been Steve Conlon of Thistle Dew Farms. Conlon's educational program draws crowds with his beard of bees - he places a queen bee on his chin and other bees swarm to it.
Yes, he said, he does get stung and it does hurt. However, after decades of bee stings, his body has built an immunity and is impervious to bee venom. As he stood inside a screen tent with bees swarming all around, he spoke of the history and nature of bees.
"Think about who is the boss of the hive," Conlon said. "It's the queen, right? But the queen is not the boss. It's a social community, the queen has a job to do, like everybody else. There's a high turnover among workers, the queen lays hundreds of eggs each day to replace workers who are dying."
Bees also aren't native to the United States. The Western Hemisphere, in fact, was void of bees before European settlement.
"They aren't native. Settlers brought them to the New World, just like they did their cattle, sheep and goats," he said.
But a year after the first bees arrived, there were bees in the wild, as hives split and bees left to establish new hives in the forests, he said.
"Then North America, South America and Central America were all populated by European honeybees," Conlon said.
In addition to various attractions, activities and vendors, the festival included live entertainment. Sunday's performances included Bobbie Kirl, The Parkersburg High School Red Wings, Ms. Vicki, Jerry and Lisa Queen, Voices of Triumph and David Wells.
