Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Annual Honey Show Awards Presented
| For Immediate Release: February 1, 2000 | Contact: | Hope Gruzlovic
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BEST OF SHOW Best of Division: Comb Products 1 lb. Extracted Light Honey 1 lb. Block of Beeswax 1 lb. Extracted Light Amber Honey Dry Mead 1 lb. Extracted Dark Honey Mead with Fruit Juice 1 lb. Extracted Amber Honey Creamed Honey Novelty Candle Novelty Beeswax |
New Jersey's Secretary of Agriculture Art Brown presented this year's Best of Show Awards in honey and honey product competition to Wolfgang Kuehn of Jackson, who also took top honors in last year's event. Brown also presented Honey Queen Alexandra Leuchs of Jackson and Honey Princess Justina Puvel of Jacobstown with a joint resolution from the Senate and the Assembly recognizing the contributions of beekeepers to agriculture in the Garden State. Brown noted that beekeeping is one of the oldest agricultural pursuits, with domestic honeybees introduced into this country by the earliest European colonists. "Nationally the honeybee is directly or indirectly related to the production of one-third of our food and fiber," Brown said. "Here in New Jersey, where the honeybee is the state insect, more than $208 million worth of crops required bees for pollination." Kuehn placed first in extracted light, extracted dark, creamed honey, chunk honey, beeswax candle, novelty candle, novelty beeswax, block beeswax and sweet mead and took best of division in extracted dark, beeswax, comb products and mead. There are approximately 10,000 managed colonies of bees statewide which produce an average of over 45 pounds of honey per colony. Each year, approximately 18,000 colonies of bees are imported into the state to help pollinate New Jersey's crops. A complete list of this year's winners follows.