Out-Of-Work Appalachian Coal Miners Are Being Retrained As Beekeepers

Nov 30, 2019

Change can be scary and painful, even when it's positive change. With the move to more environmentally-friendly alternatives to coal, the coal industry has shrunk, leaving roughly a hundred thousand coal miners our of work in West Virginia.

Additionally, the coal industry has done enormous environmental harm. A visionary organization, Appalachian Headwaters, was founded in 2016 with funds from a legal settlement. They are looking to re-train former coal miners as beekeepers, as reported here at The Washington Post.

Bees are currently under stress due to climate change and play an important role in our food chain. They provide both honey and pollination for some plants.

The Appalachian Beekeeping Collective trains new beekeepers to do environmentally-friendly work that pays well.

In West Virginia, 28% of the population live in poverty and the unemployment rate in some counties is double the U.S. average.

These programs are open to anyone living at or below the federal poverty level, not just former coal miners. The organization offers introductory beekeeping classes as well as equipment to get started and -- you guessed it -- bees!

In addition to training, participants can also receive mentorship. This helps with their professional and personal development, which they need to successfully transition from employee to small-time entrepreneur.

The program had modest beginnings. It was initially envisioned as a means to provide pollination for ecological restoration projects. However, it soon became apparent that it also created skilled workers capable of making better than minimum wage.

This is a multi-million dollar opportunity for the state. Beekeepers are paid fair wages for caring for the beehives, then the collective bottles and sells the resulting honey.

Honey currently retails for about $7 per pound and a beehive can produce as much as a hundred pounds of honey. Twenty hives can fetch up to $15,000 per season as per NPR.

The program currently reaches seventeen counties in the state. They have plans to expand into parts of two neighboring states, Kentucky and Virginia according to their website.

Sustainable development is good for both the land and the people. It is simply not true that the only way to prosper is to extract value from the land until it is exhausted of all value. Good stewardship of both the land and the people is the other way to handle things. It is far saner and gives everyone a brighter future.

This program means sweet success for many of the locals. If this story brightened your day, pass it on.