Beekeeping Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

To Keep Industry Abuzz, W.Va. Beekeepers Want More State Protection

Beekeepers from across West Virginia visited the State Capitol Thursday to urge lawmakers to protect beekeeping rights in the Mountain State.

West Virginia is home to roughly 16,000 honeybee colonies, which produce at least 250,000 pounds of honey per year, according to the West Virginia Department of Agriculture (WVDA). Across the United States, agriculturists estimate that honeybee-pollinated crops make up one-third of the food we eat.

But beekeepers in the Mountain State say overly restrictive local ordinances can make it hard to maintain colonies. Concerns like these have spilled over into the courtroom; and, this week, shown up at the State Capitol.

In 2023, South Charleston resident Alex Urban sought a permit to keep bees on his property, but was rejected by the city. South Charleston went on to ban keeping domesticated animals like bees within its limits, so Urban filed a lawsuit in the Kanawha County Circuit Court in August 2023.

On Urban’s behalf, the WVDA argued in court that the city “exceeded its legal authority” by enforcing beekeeping regulations outside the West Virginia Apiary Act and the West Virginia Right to Farm Law, the WVDA said in a Feb. 3 press release.

Ultimately, the circuit court ruled in favor of Urban and the WVDA, affirming that the WVDA has authority over beekeeping regulations in the state.

“Beekeeping is a crucial component of agriculture and environmental sustainability, and we are committed to protecting those who contribute to our state’s food systems,” said West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture Kent Leonhardt in the press release. “We worked diligently to ensure that the law remains clear and fair for all West Virginia farmers and beekeepers.”

While the circuit court case has been put to rest, beekeepers across the state want stronger protection to ensure local policies do not infringe upon their right to maintain colonies. Several visited the State Capitol Thursday for “Agriculture Day,” an annual event that aims to familiarize lawmakers and residents with issues affecting the state’s agriculture industry.

From left: Paxton Coby, West Virginia Beekeepers Association; Rick Forre, Fayette County Beekeepers; Louisa Householder, WVBA; and Mike Lamp, Monongalia County Beekeepers.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Louisa Householder is president of the West Virginia Beekeepers Association (WVBA), which offers education, mentorship and advocacy to 25 regional beekeeping clubs across the Mountain State.

To prevent future conflicts on the local level, she said her organization is advocating for the West Virginia Legislature to pass House Bill 2454, which would clarify in the West Virginia Code that authority over apiary policies rests solely in the WVDA.

The bill was proposed in the West Virginia House of Delegates by Del. Mike Hornby, R-Berkeley, on Feb. 17. It has not yet been taken up for a reading on the House floor.

“No town, city, municipality or political subdivision may prohibit urban agriculture or agricultural residential land or cause a permit or license to be issued or obtained to engage in the practice of urban agriculture,” the bill reads.

“It strengthens the apiary law that we already have,” Householder said, adding that supporting beekeeping rights “is extremely important for food security.”

Mike Lamp serves as the president of the Monongalia County Beekeepers Association, part of the WVBA network. He said the value of pollinators like honeybees reaches beyond food production.

“Pollinators not only help with cultivating crops, but wild species of plants as well,” he said.

Like Householder, Lamp said reinforcing protections is a simple way to ensure an important animal species keeps strong numbers across the state.

“The beekeeping industry in West Virginia is not necessarily a small one. It’s a relatively sizable industry with a lot of people who are affected by ordinances like these,” Lamp said. “That’s what makes this bill all the more important.”

Handmade Fly Fishing Rods And The World’s Largest Tea Pot, Inside Appalachia

This week on Inside Appalachia, we visit with a West Virginia man who shows his love for fishing by building exquisite, handmade fly rods. It’s a long process, but he shares his knowledge with others. We also spill the tea on a classic roadside attraction in Chester, West Virginia.

This week, we visit with a West Virginia man who shows his love for fishing by building exquisite, handmade fly rods. It’s a long process, but he shares his knowledge with others.

We also spill the tea on a classic roadside attraction in Chester, West Virginia.

And punk music photographer Chelse Warren takes us into the pit for stories and observations.

You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.

In This Episode:

Passing On The Craft Of Making Fly Fishing Rods
Among The Bees Of The Mountain State
Spilling The Tea On An Appalachian Roadside Attraction
Open Head Takes Photos

Passing On The Craft Of Making Fly Fishing Rods

Lee Orr fly fishing on the Elk River.

*Photo Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Most athletes welcome technical innovations in sports equipment, but fly fishing is different. Some fishermen prefer the old-fashioned way, with fishing flies and wooden rods made by hand.

Folkways Reporter Zack Harold took us to the Elk River to learn more.

Among The Bees Of The Mountain State

Beekeeping is busy all summer long in West Virginia.

*Photo Credit: MERCURY Studio/Adobe Stock*

Honeybees have been at work since the first days of spring.

In 2022, Folkways Reporter Margaret McCloud Leef brought us a report from a community of West Virginia beekeepers.

Spilling The Tea On An Appalachian Roadside Attraction

The World’s Largest Teapot in Chester has been an attraction for generations.

*Photo Credit: Zander Aloi/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Summer is a good time to take a road trip. Out on the roads of Appalachia, you never know what you’ll see.

Last year, Inside Appalachia’s Zander Aloi took a trip to Chester, West Virginia, to learn the story behind a classic roadside attraction there – a souvenir stand known as the World’s Largest Teapot.

Openhead Takes Photos

Last summer, Mason Adams visited a two-day DIY music festival called The Floor is Gone.

In the middle of it all was photographer Chelse Warren, who goes by Openhead Takes Photos online.

Mason reached out to talk music and more.

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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Mary Hott, John Blissard, Town Mountain and Sean Watkins.

Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. We had help this week from folkways editor Chris Julin.

You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.

You can find us on Instagram, Threads and Twitter @InAppalachia. Or here on Facebook.

Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!

Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

The Buzz About Bees And No Hate In My Hollar, Inside Appalachia

This week, we head to the meadows and woods of West Virginia to catch the buzz on beekeeping. And, it’s been over six years since Kentucky artist Lacy Hale designed her iconic “No Hate in My Holler” screen print. Appalachians are still telling her how much they identify with its message. We also take a ride on the Cass Scenic Railroad and explore some one-of-a-kind getaways in West Virginia.

This week, we head to the meadows and woods of West Virginia to catch the buzz on beekeeping.

And, it’s been over six years since Kentucky artist Lacy Hale designed her iconic “No Hate in My Holler” screen print. Appalachians are still telling her how much they identify with its message.

We also take a ride on the Cass Scenic Railroad and explore some one-of-a-kind getaways in West Virginia.

You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.

In This Episode:

The Buzz About Bees In West Virginia
Lacy Hale’s “No Hate In My Hollar”
Glamping It Up With Cass Railroad
Armadillo On My Mind

The Buzz About Bees In West Virginia

Folkways Reporter Margaret McLeod Leef learns about beekeeping in Summers County, West Virginia at the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective.

*Credit: Margaret McLeod Leef/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

We visited among stands of black locust and tulip poplar trees for a report from Folkways Reporter Margaret Leef. She checks in with a community of West Virginia beekeepers.

Lacy Hale’s “No Hate in My Hollar”

In Pound, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, there’s a mural depicting an old woman smoking a pipe and holding a baby wrapped in a big bright quilt. The mural honors Nancy Mullins Shores, a beloved local midwife. It’s part of a growing body of work by artist Lacy Hale, who has been painting murals and turning out viral images from eastern Kentucky for years.

Host Mason Adams visited Hale and talked with her about the mural and “No Hate in My Holler,” a screen print she designed in 2017, in response to a Nazi rally.

Glamping It Up With Cass Railroad

Vickie Yohe, sitting by the fire outside a glamping dome near Alderson, West Virginia.

*Credit: Randy Yohe/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Appalachia is full of odd, off-beat and cool places to rest for the night. West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Randy Yohe and his wife, Vickie, like to get out, travel and explore unusual places to stay.

Randy brought back a story from one of their trips to the Cass Railroad in West Virginia.

Armadillo On My Mind

A lot of times we hear about animals becoming endangered or disappearing, but there are species that are emerging or moving into Appalachia, like the armadillo, which is usually found in the southwest.

In the last few years, armadillos have been spotted in the mountains of western Virginia.

Mason Adams spoke with Seth Thompson, a biologist with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, who took the first reports of armadillos in the state.

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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Tim Bing, Tyler Childers, Paul Loomis, and Chris Stapleton.

Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.

You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.

You can find us on Instagram and Twitter @InAppalachia. Or here on Facebook.

Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!

Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

West Virginia Beekeepers Say Their Tradition Is About More Than The Honey

People in West Virginia get into beekeeping for all sorts of reasons: to protect the pollinators, to make lip balm and other beeswax products, and of course, they do it for the honey. Regardless of what brings people to beekeeping, there’s a vast network of support—both formal and informal—to help people learn the craft.

It seems that beekeepers in West Virginia have as much to learn from honeybees as they do each other. Beekeepers in the state are getting much more than honey; they are gaining knowledge and insights from their close-knit community.

In Summers County, West Virginia, Mark Lilly grew up watching his grandfather and relatives keep bees. Today, Lilly works as a master beekeeper for the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective, a non-profit that helps train beekeepers in economically depressed regions in West Virginia and Virginia. On a recent sunny day, Lilly showed me his honeybee hives. Against the backdrop of the steady hum of busy bees, he lifted the box of a hive to check his swarm’s honey production.

“This colony is doing real well building up for the spring. We’re probably three weeks plus before the flow would hit,” Lilly said.

The flow Mark was referring to is the honey. Honey from West Virginia is often tree honey. Bees collect nectar from flowering trees such as black locust and tulip poplar.

“I think we could probably prove that the Appalachian area provides world class honey,” he said.

Lilly is in his sixties and grew up in Raleigh County. He’s been keeping bees for over 25 years. Recently, there has been an increase in new beekeepers in West Virginia. According to Shanda King, the State Apiarist, beekeeping is on the rise, as is the number of colonies per beekeeper.

Sarah Ann Mclannahan of Charleston is one of them. “Getting into my hives the first time…they always say that they can smell fear. No, I was too excited for that,” Mclannahan said.

She recently took over her aunt’s hives. After lifting the top off one of the hives, we saw an army of bees gathering on the top edge of the hive. She pumped a smoker to calm the agitated bees. “We are going to force these guys to go down,” she said. The bees became listless as we inspected the hive.

Folkways reporter Margaret Mcleod Leef learns about beekeeping in Summers County, WV at Appalachian Beekeeping Collective.

Mclannahan had a lot of help learning to keep bees. She has a co-worker who has hives, and he’s become her mentor. Mark Lilly also had a mentor early on. His grandfather was big into bees. He kept bees in hollowed-out logs. He usually used gum trees which decayed from the inside out, making them perfect for honeybee hives.

“When my grandfather was doing it, it was a section of a log with a piece of wood or tin on top of it, and comb in there, and he would just take a big aluminum dishpan and a bread knife and cut out the top which is where the honey was stored,” Lilly said.

Lilly’s grandfather kept bees for the honey. It brought the family together when he’d plunk the aluminum pan with honeycomb on the center of the table beside fresh biscuits. But beekeepers in West Virginia today are getting into beekeeping for more than the honey. And Lilly should know. As the master beekeeper for the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective, he teaches free classes via Zoom to new beekeepers. That includes teaching how beekeepers today keep their swarms.

In his beekeeping 101 classes, Lilly covers everything from equipment to potential problems with swarms—things have changed since his grandfather’s day. “Generally, beekeepers around the world use a Langstroth Hive. It’s universal so it’s easy to get equipment. They have to have movable frames to be inspected. To check for disease you have to be able to pull the frames out,” he said.

While Lilly absorbed a lot about beekeeping by watching his grandfather, he discovered much of what he learned through his own research and by attending statewide conferences. He’s now part of a tight knit network of beekeepers around the state. And so is Mclannahan. She’s connected with beekeepers around the state through social media.

Mark Lilly inspects a frame of his honeybee hive.

“Facebook groups have been amazing. I have learned a lot about bees by going to the Women Beekeepers retreat in July,” said Mclannahan. The retreat she attends each summer is hosted by Phyllis Varian who founded the Women Beekeepers of West Virginia.

Varian noticed beekeeping in West Virginia was male dominated. She started the retreat to give women hands-on experience with bees. She also created a Facebook page that the women use to get help with their beekeeping quandaries. Mclannahan is a big fan of the group.

“Some people have questions, and I’m just like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s really cool. Let’s see what everybody says.’” Mclannahan has bonded with people from all walks of life through beekeeping. And the same is true for Lilly in his work with the collective.

“The beautiful part of the collective is it’s a great cross section of society. We’ve got young teens, all the way up to more senior citizens, different ethnic backgrounds. I’d be comfortable in saying at least 50 percent of the collective members are ladies,” Lilly said.

This diverse group of beekeepers, they tend to share their knowledge. “We all can gain something from hearing about other people’s successes and their mistakes. We can learn from that, too,” Lilly said.

For both Mclannahan and Lilly, sharing their beekeeping knowledge also means teaching the next generation. Mclannahan spends time in the bee yard with her nine-year-old son. His favorite part of the process? Enjoying the honey.

“My son is a peanut butter and honey sandwich eater every day. He eats probably a jar a month, and I can’t hardly keep it in stock,” Mclannahan said. And Lilly spends evenings working the bees with his kids and grandkids. He hopes they will share his admiration for the bees and the way they work together.

“Something as simple as insects and a box—that’s what we can learn and what we can teach others,” he said. “They’re working to improve their society—this hive is their community. And they all want to see it prosper. And that’s for the community or the hive, to be healthy, to produce everything it needs, food wise, to protect each other. I think we can all learn to get along like honeybees.”

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This story originally aired in the Aug. 5, 2022 episode of Inside Appalachia.

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, which is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation.

Subscribe to Inside Appalachia to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.

Program is Turning Warriors to Farmers Across W.Va.

As the country continues to struggle to help its military members returning from war, one fledgling program in West Virginia isn’t wasting any time tackling the issues veterans face.

From transitional job training to psychological therapy, members of the Warriors and Veterans to Agriculture Program say they’re discovering they can help West Virginia veterans in more ways than they ever anticipated.

The program stemmed from an idea James McCormick had in 2009. He’d returned from war with multiple gunshots wounds, suffering from PTSD, and found solace in working with the dirt.

He started his own farm, supplying sorghum to a local festival, and began connecting with other veterans who were interested in starting farms of their own.

By 2014, McCormick had drummed up support from veteran groups and the newly elected Agriculture Commissioner Walt Helmick. He took his group to the statehouse to start shaking hands with lawmakers to get a bill passed, but said he made those visits not as a lobbyist, but as a constituent asking his legislators for their support.

One of the most popular programs the state offers for veterans is beekeeping.

The bill was passed with little opposition during the 2014 legislative session, but without funding. McCormick has worked to get local grants, money from universities and has partnered with the Department of Veterans Assistance and the West Virginia Women’s Coalition to provide supplies and necessary training to interested veterans.

One of those veterans was Eric Grandon who says the program has helped him in two ways.

0724VetstoAg2.mp3

Financial:

Grandon is a 20-year Army veteran who suffers from PTSD and is disabled, unable to qualify for a job in the physical therapy field for which he was trained.

Grandon lives on his family farm in Clay County that, until he got involved in the program, was just a small garden, but working with program director James McCormick has become his lifeblood. Grandon sells his produce at area farmers’ markets and even supplies food to Clay County Schools as a part of their Farm to School program.

Farming has given him a second chance, Grandon said, helping him provide for his family while he reaps other benefits.

Warriors and Veterans to Agriculture provides veterans with two bee hives, a smoker and a protective suit. Veterans must then purchase the bees themselves. Between what the program spends and the veterans, two beehives can total about $750 to start.

Therapy:

Another ancillary benefits is therapy. Since increasing the size of his farm, Grandon says he has stopped having to meet with VA therapists to deal with his PTSD. Instead, he works with his plants and tends to his two new beehives, provided by the Warriors to Agriculture Program earlier this year.

Grandon’s experience though, isn’t unlike many who participate in the program according to BethAnn Earl, a Navy vet who runs an urban farm in Huntington.

“I actually had a veteran say to me, he said when he picked up the dirt and he rubbed it all over his hands and arms, he said it wasn’t until then that the blood came off his hands,” she said.

The Warriors and Veterans to Agriculture program is averaging about seven to 10 applicants a week and has trains veterans in planting and maintain row crops, bees hives and livestock.