Some coal-country West Virginians are turning to beekeeping

Nonprofifit aims to help 15 counties hit by job losses.

Leisa Moten has a stable job as a church administrative assistant in West Virginia, but like some others in her town of Pipestem — population 846 — she is still living below the poverty line, earning $15,800 a year. Where she lives in southern West Virginia, the poverty rate reaches as high as 28 percent in certain areas, and unemployment in some counties is more than twice the national average. Making endsmeet is sometimes a challenge, she said, andwell-paying jobs can be hard to come by. SoMoten, 58, was interestedwhen she learned that a nonprofifit in hercommunity, Appalachian Beekeeping Collective, was looking for several dozen people to train as beekeepers, then buy their honey. It’s an effffffffffffort to help rebuild 15 West Virginia counties harmed by job losses caused by the deep decline in coal mining. “When coal mining jobs went away, our economy went with them,” said Moten. Moten decided to give beekeeping a try. Her husband, EddyMoten, a former hospital radiation therapy technician who is disabled and no longer able to work, joined her. They received three hives in May last year, and their fifirst honeywill be harvested this springfora$6perpound profit. She estimates that will bring in between $1,200 and $1,800 to pay offff a few bills and invest in her new business, Meant to Bee Apiary and Artisan Creations. Moten plans to sell a few jars of honey to friends and alsocraft andsellhomemade honey-scented soaps and lip balmmadewith organic beeswax. Getting stung now and then is a small price to pay, she said, for some extra pocket money and fresh honey for her breakfast toast. Moten is among 35 West Virginians who became apprentice beekeepers last year after taking Beekeeping 101 classes through the AppalachianBeekeepingCol- lective programoperated by Appalachian Headwaters, a nonprofifit started in 2016 to restore native hardwood forests and streams on former mining sites throughout central Appalachia. With another 55 “wannabe” keepers currently being trained in a new round of classes, beehives are a “win-win-win” for the region, said program co-founder Kate Asquith. Besides supplementing the incomes of West Virginians living at or below the poverty level, she said, beekeepingwill help to pollinate scarred landscapes and perhaps give a boost to the threatened honeybee population. Worker bees fly away from their boxes to pollinate, then return to tell the other bees through a “waggle” dance where to fifind a nectar source. As an incentive for beekeepers, equipment is free for thosewho are part of the program, and staffff workers will handle the sticky job of harvesting, cleaning andbottling the honey every spring and summer. “The cost to each beekeeper is nothing except their time,” Asquithsaid. “In West Virginia, even though many people live in poverty, they have a lot of open space, free of pesticides and herbicides, to keep hives.” Appalachians have been tied to their land for generations, said Asquith, but whenmining jobs in the eastern U.S. began to dwindle after coal prices fell in the 1980s, young people often felt they had no choice but to leave. “People are migrating out and not moving in, and entire communities built around the coal industry are in serious decline,” she said. “But bees are good ambassadors. Our hope is that through beekeeping, people will be able to build up their skill base.” James Scyphers, a former coal miner and carpenter fromAthens, West Virginia, has been able to do just that. When he learned about two years ago that the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective was looking for somebody to help build beehives at the nonprofifit’s new fifield offiffice in Hinton, near Athens, he applied, thinking he might earn a little extra spending money for a few months. “I really liked foolingwith the honeybees, though, and pretty soon, I was takingbeekeeping classes,” he said. Scyphers, 69, who followed his dad and grandfather into a life of working underground in narrow and sometimes dangerous passages, was laid offff in the mid-1980s when the coal mine he worked for shut down, he said. Overnight, the father of two went from earning $20 an hour to $6 an hour as a carpenter — a job he was thankful to fifind. “It was a struggle, but we got through it,” he said.“We had to. We found out how much less we could really live on.” Now that Scyphers is working full-timefor the collective, building bee boxes, tending bees and mixing sugar with water to form sugar cakes to help honeybees survive the winter, he said he’s never been happier. He also looks after four hives of his own at home. “It’s themost satisfying job I’veeverhad; Iwishwe’dhad this opportunity 30 years ago,” he said. “Beekeeping is something with the potential to help lots of people. I’d encourage anybody who worked in themines to try it. You’re working with your hands, you’re outside in nature, and nothing else out there the has work ethic of the honeybee.” For Jason Young, a school bus driver fromWhite Oak, West Virginia, who is raising six children with his wife, Angela, beekeeping will hopefully bring in enough extra income to grow the business he just started, White Oak Bee Co., he said. Young has 13 hives andhas developed a honey-roasted coffffffffffffee called Appalachian Honey Bean. “I’ve always loved coffffffffffffee, and I thought that a honey coffffffffffffee might help to separateme fromthe other local beekeepers,” he said. There is another sweet incentive for Young to put on a bee suit once a week and check on the hives he keeps on his property and at a friend’s small farm: His daughter, Rosalyn, 16, also enjoys beekeeping. They took classes together through the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective. “She’s a daddy’s girl,” said Young, 41. “I’d have to say that working with the bees has brought us closer together.”