Home » Beekeeping and Honey Expo planned at Jenny Wiley State Resort Park

Beekeeping and Honey Expo planned at Jenny Wiley State Resort Park

Scheduled for Saturday

PRESTONSBURG, Ky. (July 28, 2015) — Jenny Wiley State Resort Park is hosting a Beekeeping and Honey Expo from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

The expo will feature presentations and displays about beginning beekeeping, pest control, harvesting honey and other topics.

beesThe event will be held at the park’s Wilkinson-Stumbo Convention Center. Vendors with beekeeping equipment and honey will also be at the expo.

Honeybees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In Kentucky honybees are “responsible for pollinating 30 percent of our food supply and 70 percent of all wildflowers,” Agriculture Secretary James Comer said in a recent press release. He said sales of honey brought in an estimated $811,000 to Kentucky honey producers in 2012.

Overall, there are an estimated 115,000-125,000 beekeepers in the U.S., according to honey.com. Most are hobbyists with less than 25 hives. Commercial beekeepers are those with 300 or more hives. The number of U.S. honey bee colonies producing honey in 2013 was 2.64 million (based on beekeepers who manage five or more colonies), up 4 percent from 2012.