On Saturday January 27th, we went to Parkerburg, WV to attend the 16th annual Honey Expo put on by the Mid Ohio Valley Beekeepers. This is a one day event held at the West Virginia University at Parkerburg campus. The expo has 4 sessions, each having a choice of 6 or 7 classes to attend on a wide variety of topics. There are a dozen or more vendors on hand with items for sale so you can start that early season shopping too. This is the second year that we attended this expo. It is about a 2-1/2 hour drive from home, and makes for a long day of driving and sitting, but doable. The keynote speaker this year was Dr. Larry Conner.

Wade Stiltner, the current WV state apiarist, is a very enjoyable speaker to hear. Great sense of humor and delivers information in a very down to earth manner. He has a lot of experience and isn’t ashamed to tell of the catastrophes he has had. We have sat in on several of his talks the last two years and have enjoyed all of them.

A good cross section of young and old attendees at this conference. This year there seemed to be more younger kids in attendance, which is very good to see. Seems like the bulk of people we see at bee club meetings are older, so it is good to see the younger generations taking an active interest in bees.

The Expo usually wraps up around 4:00 so you can get on the road at a decent time if you are driving home that day. Of course it takes us about an hour longer to get home than to get there since we usually pick out a chinese buffet on the way home for supper. 🙂

The timing of the Honey Expo is great since it gives you something to look forward to in January. A time when we are a bit in limbo waiting for warmer weather to get busy with our bees.