Sunken Meadow State Park was abuzz on Saturday for the Pollinator Festival, a state-led effort to educate Long Islanders about the importance of bees, birds and native plants.

Honeybees hummed in see-through cases, while monarch butterflies fluttered in a migration station at the Kings Park event, which featured more than a dozen tables for education, local businesses and community initiatives.

"We’re here today educating people about the importance of pollinators and how they can use native plants to attract bees, butterflies and birds at home," said Katie Schnepp, an environmental education manager for the state parks department and a festival organizer. About 200 people passed through the festival on Saturday.

Wild petunias, swamp milkweed and purple coneflowers were among the plants laid out on the grounds near the entrance to the park. The plants, in their infancy, were available for parkgoers to purchase and place in their home gardens — part of an effort to encourage residents to grow flora native to Long Island that supports the pollinator population.

Alexa Hoffman, a horticulturist at Bethpage State Park, said insects laid their eggs on the plants, continuing their life cycles while also supporting the food chains for birds. 

"These plants are the ones that are going to host the pollinators and insects that all of our ecosystems rely on," Hoffman said.

Honey made from local bees was sold at the festival, highlighting the importance of the pollinator and its role in food production. The United States Department of Agriculture says more than 100 U.S.-grown crops rely on pollinators like bees, creating $18 billion in added revenue.

Moira Alexander, a master beekeeper who has eight bee colonies at Bethpage State Park, had beekeeper suits lined on the outside of her tent, along with a sample container she’d use to receive a shipment of 10,000 bees to start a colony. The festival is an opportunity, she said, to change people’s perceptions about bees.

"My job as a master beekeeper is really to turn fear into fascination," Alexander said.

Lori Lombardi, a Herricks teacher and Wantagh resident, was with her husband and three children — ages 11, 9 and 5 — at the festival. She said it's important to get her kids outside in nature to spark their curiosity.

"Myself, my daughter and my son — we all had painted lady butterflies in our classroom," said Lombardi. "Something as small as that is so memorable for children. I felt like they were so excited to tell us about the stages of life and releasing them into the wild."

Her daughter, Aubrey, 9, said she liked that she "got to see all the butterflies" flying in the monarch station.

That connection to monarch butterflies, said Lynn Walsh, a master gardener and a volunteer of Cornell Cooperative Extension, was a gateway to getting people to better understand the threats facing the insect, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended to be included on the federal endangered species list.

The Suffolk Alliance for Pollinators, a collection of environmental groups, had coloring pages for children and facts listed about why milkweed plants were necessary to support the monarch butterfly in an effort to bolster their population locally.

"Monarchs are ubiquitous," Walsh said. "We really want to try and preserve them for future generations."