By JOLENE CRAIG
Ohio Correspondent

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — Parkersburg City Park was full of buzz during the 30th annual West Virginia Honey Festival Aug. 28-29, with a record number of people through the gates.

“This year is one of the busiest festivals, in terms of attendance, that we have had in several years,” said Tom Riddle, president of the festival. Riddle added the 2009 festival had about 3,000 people attending, while this year’s had more than 4,000.

“I know we had over 3,000 people on Saturday, which is around the same number of people we had in both days last year. This year was much better than we expected.”

Because the yearly event is for the statewide beekeepers and their honey, the crowds included people from all over West Virginia as well as Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia. Parkersburg is located along the Ohio River near Belpre, Ohio.

Those who attended the festival had the chance to taste different types of honey from around the Mountain State and the opportunity to see cooking demonstrations and the festival’s staple “bee beards.”

2010 American Honey Queen Lisa Schluttenhofer, 20, attended both days of the festival and gave an informational program about how honeybees are the building blocks of the food supply, called “Beekeeping in America,” as well as the cooking demonstrations.

“I travel through the United States promoting the knowledge that honeybees pollinate one-third of our plants, including our fruits and vegetables,” said Schluttenhofer, who hails from Thornton, Ind. “You can use honey in just about any recipe to replace another sweetener.”

While in the mid-Ohio Valley, Schluttenhofer – who has been a beekeeper for eight years – gave presentations in area schools. She previously served as 2009 Indiana Honey Queen.

Steve Conlon of Thistle Dew Farms has been building beards of live honeybees at the festival since 1984. To create the bee beard, Conlon places a queen bee on his chin and other bees swarm to it, during an educational program. Conlon and his wife, Ellie, do the program from inside a mesh tent on the pavilion stage, which allows him to work with the bees with her help.

More than a dozen honey and beekeeping groups filled the park’s pavilion with demonstrations and bee-related products and honey for sale. The Tri-County Beekeepers Assoc., which includes Gilmer, Ritchie, Doddridge and Pleasants counties of West Virginia, had varieties of honey they let people sample as well as selling it.

Susie Hall, with the association, said their booth had completely sold out of quarts of honey within the first few hours of Saturday. “I am really surprised because we didn’t have one quart jar for Sunday,” she said.

Quarts of the Tri-County honey were not the group’s only popular items; the last jar of creamed honey was gone in the first four hours of the event.

The Mountain State Honey Co., located in Tucker County, W.Va., also had a high number of sales during the festival.

“We were busy all weekend with customers,” said Alisa Poling, with the company. “This is one festival where the customers know what they want to buy.”

The focus of the festival is to promote the honey industry and Riddle said that mission was aided by the large number of people who attended.

“We hope people have a better appreciation of the honeybee,” Riddle said. “There has been a lot of education available about the bees.”