Local Focus
In Edgecombe County, surrounding counties and throughout North Carolina people have created great businesses, lovely restaurants, wonderful learning experiences and captivating events. Local Focus is meant to highlight these endeavors and remind us that we all appreciate beauty, good food, and happy productive ways to spend our time. Community is important. We must find common ground for appreciation and time well spent to strengthen community.
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June 24, 2025
Bee Relief to Western North Carolina
Submitted by Patricia Willis WCBA Member
In September of 2024, Hurricane Helene roared toward the United States; ultimately
hitting head on in the Big Bend area of Florida and then rolling through Georgia, South
Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee , Western Virginia and on up through the Midwest,
finally dissipating in the New England States. The damage to our counties in Western North Carolina was devastating and expensive. Rampaging flood waters destroyed roads, homes, businesses, tourist attractions, agricultural crops and livestock, including honeybee hives.
The NC State Apiculture program at NC State University estimated that 70% to 90% of
working beehives in the mountains were destroyed by Helene. In October, Dr. David
Tarpy, who works with NC State’s Apiculture program came up with an idea to help
beekeepers in Western North Carolina. A Group from the NC State Beekeeper’s Association went to the Mountains to assess the situation. From that assessment a project was born in which different beekeeping groups and clubs around the state were paired up with specific western counties to help bring honeybees back to the area. Wake County Beekeepers Association teamed up with beekeepers in Johnston, Harnett, Lee and Moore Counties to help the beekeepers in Ashe County rebuild their honeybee population.
The Wilson County Beekeepers Association (WCBA) also participated in this project to help our fellow beekeepers recover. In February, the club voted to buy and paint the boxes used
to house the bees. Then, over the next several months they fed and split beehives from
their apiary to populate those boxes. The Club in Wilson was paired with Haywood
County which is between Asheville and Cherokee, North Carolina. The County Seat of
Haywood County is Waynesville. On June 8, 2025, Forty new beehives were loaded onto a trailer and several members of the WCBA made the trip to Haywood County. Along with the beehives they brought 2000 lbs. of sugar to support the hives until they are well settled in their new homes. Hooper’s Creek Bee Company donated the sugar.
The Haywood County Beekeepers Association members were on hand to receive the
new hives and sugar. They expressed their gratitude for all the WCBA volunteers
who helped by painting boxes, building frames and building bee populations.
Honeybees are an important part of our agricultural efforts. They provide important
pollination activity and also contribute their sweet honey for our consumption.
It is such good news to see how good people in our state respond so graciously to help
others who have experienced loss in natural disasters.
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WRAL NEWS https://www.wral.com/lifestyle/nc-beekeepers-revive-honeybee-population-after-hurricane-helene/
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Wilson County Beekeepers Association Facebook page, June 8, 2025