JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Signs for local honey in East Taylor Township lead to The Honey Garden, a new bee farm where thousands of bees and their keeper, Peggy Parks, are hard at work producing honey.
Parks opened her shop at 166 Jesse Lane about two months ago and sells 100% pure honey from her hives, along with a variety of flavored honey from Huckle Bee Farm in Bedford.
Outside the shop, her garden is filled with a variety of flowers visited by bees that take nectar and pollen back to a bee yard of more than 50 hives tucked away on a secluded part of the sprawling property.
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The bees build their hives in boxes surrounded by high-voltage wire to keep bears from gorging themselves on the vast amounts of honey under production.
“Bees are just a miracle bug,” Parks said.
About 75% of the world’s flowering plants and about 35% of the world’s food crops depend on pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Parks’ hives are populated by Italian bees that she purchased as well as local bees that she’s captured from trees in yards of local residents.
“People call me all the time to catch swarms of bees,” she said. “I hate to turn them down because, first of all, people are scared to death of them, and secondly, bees need a home. Bees are so important for the environment.”
Parks, a retired building code department auditor, continues to work full-time as a sewer enforcement contractor for 18 municipalities in the Johnstown region.
About three years ago, while on a sewer job, Parks spotted a honey bee hive that belonged to Denise Wozniak, of Tanneryville. Wozniak has been a beekeeper for about eight years, producing honey for personal use. The two women became friends, and Wozniak taught Parks about beekeeping.
The Honey Garden
Beekeeper Peggy Parks at The Honey Garden bee farm shop, 166 Jesse Lane, East Taylor Township, Monday August 4, 2025.
“Peggy is one of the most energetic and hardest-working people I know,” Wozniak said. “I extract honey for personal use, but not interested in selling honey. She’s good at all of that stuff. Her place is perfect. It’s beautiful. She’s come a long way and is doing really well.”
Each bee, in its 29-day adult lifespan, produces about a teaspoon of honey, Parks said. Collectively, a single hive produces up to 90 pounds of honey by the time Parks harvests it in the fall and spring seasons.
Parks removes panels of honeycomb from the boxes and inserts them into a series of machines to separate the honey from the octagonal beeswax chambers, filter it and heat it to exactly 100 degrees, which retains the health benefits of the honey while making it easier for bottling and stocking on the shelves of her shop.
In the short time she’s advertised her shop on Facebook, she’s met visitors to the area from Florida, Missouri, Kansas and Minnesota.
She encourages customers to taste samples. She recalled a time that one customer from Pittsburgh appeared only interested in browsing until she tasted the honey – she left with 14 jars, Parks said.
Parks co-owns the business with Wendy Cramer.
“When she sets her mind to something, she does it,” Cramer said.
Last October, Parks got started on building her shop and has immersed herself in the beekeeping trade with membership to the beekeepers’ association for Cambria, Clearfield and Blair counties.
Eileen Gray and Beth Smith, of Richland Township, visited The Honey Garden Monday to purchase some honey and enjoy the garden.
garden
A garden at The Honey Garden bee farm, 166 Jesse Lane, East Taylor Township, Monday August 4, 2025.
“We could spend the whole day here,” Gray said. “It’s beautiful.”
The Honey Garden’s business hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday or by appointment. Parks said she plans to expand business hours to Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or by appointment on other days of the week.
Parks sells her honey at festivals and is developing a webpage for online orders, but she especially enjoys welcoming customers to her shop.
“I like meeting people and showing them the garden and the flowers,” she said.
Although she said she is content with the size of her business and has no plans to increase the number of hives she maintains, she said it’s hard to turn people down when they call her to remove bees from tree hollows on their property.
“I get obsessed with bees, when other people call me to catch their swarms,” she said.