What’s all the Buzz about in Nitro? Teaching apiary and pollinator garden opening up

NITRO, WV (WOWK) – The City of Nitro is welcoming a new “colony” to the neighborhood, and they’re just “buzzing” with excitement.

A free teaching apiary and pollinator garden is opening up along the Kanawha River at Valentine Circle. The initiative was started by a group of beekeepers called the “Hillbilly Hippie Honeybee’s” and the “Nitro Sustainable Community” group.

Their goal is to educate the next generation of beekeepers, but they hope the outreach goes far beyond that by also helping veterans suffering from PTSD.

“It’s just very calming. It’s very relaxing. It’s just a lot of fun and just getting it out to the kids in the community as far as us passing it along to them so maybe there’s fourth, fifth, sixth generations [of beekeepers],” said Clint Baker, a third generation beekeeper.

It’s been all hands on deck from the community to get the beehive up and “buzzing.” Baker said the senior paint class at the community center helped paint the beehives that the colonies will move into.

“What we kind of strive for is education, education of the citizens, the children, just anybody that can come along and we can educate,” said Cynthia McGill, Nitro City Council Member.”

By the first day of summer, they hope to have all the bees settled into their home. Then they’ll start working on growing the pollinator garden and they can truly see how much this project blossoms.

“As you can tell we’ve gotten a handful of bees in here, few colonies in here,” Baker said. “We’re going to start hopefully growing, getting a few more colonies in here and hopefully use this as a teaching yard.”

According to Baker, grants from the city and other organizations are contributing to the cost of the project. However, if anyone would like to help donate items like plants or beekeeping supplies, they can reach out to the “ Hillbilly Hippie Honeybee’s” on Facebook.

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