Chuck Burden, beekeeper with Mountain House Apiaries, handles Italian honey bees at the Black Bear solar project in Buckingham County. (Courtesy of Dominion Energy)
Dominion Energy’s 1.6 MW Black Bear Solar project in Buckingham County is now partnered with Mountain House Apiaries, using Italian honey bees to maintain the land around the solar arrays while benefiting the local agricultural community.
The project falls under the category of agrivoltaics — another way to label pairing solar panels with agricultural uses — and is an effort by Dominion to show and see how solar can live in harmony with the land and surrounding agriculture industry.
“A lot of people are very, very passionate about making sure the area stays agricultural,” said Adam Fillius, electrical distribution program manager at Dominion Energy, while out on a tour of the facility. “If you can provide them with clean energy and still be able to stay agricultural. That’s a win for everybody.”
The honey bee, which almost became the state’s official pollinator species by way of legislation earlier this year, is lost at a 35% rate each year, but has spiked up to a 48% loss in one year. Honey bees are needed for about one-third of all food production.
“There’s plenty of feral bees out there, ones that live in the tree,” said Chuck Burden, beekeeper at Mountain House Apiaries. “The honey bees are endangered.”
Interconnecting with honey
The $7.5 million solar project, which can produce enough electricity to power 400 homes, came online in 2023 after the State Corporation Commission approved it as one of the first projects proposed under the VCEA.
Through a mutual contact, Fillius got connected with Burden, who reviewed some online maps to see if there were other bee farms within a five-mile radius, since bees travel within this range, that might create competition for food. He also checked to see what farms are in the area that might use herbicides, pesticides or insecticides.
Buckingham County, located in the middle of the state, has 375 farms totaling about 80,900 acres with an average of about 216 acres per operation, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, but Burden said he didn’t find any conflicts.
“Part of my thinking is the solar farms don’t do herbicide spraying or insecticide spraying, so the earth that they’re sitting on, regardless of what it was used for prior to, is allowed to heal and get back to its natural state,” he said. Burden also saw added appeal from the security fence and trees surrounding the facility to protect the bees from bears.
The solar panels at Dominion Energy’s Black Bear Solar project. (Charlie Paullin/Virginia Mercury)
Dominion has a requirement to have a percentage of their seed mix be pollinator friendly, which helps the bees, Burden said. That resulted in a traditional turf mix planted under the panels surrounded by native pollinator plants: white clover, little bluestem, black-eyed susan, eastern columbine, lance leaf coreopsis and more.
“Keeping all the clover and the other pollinators that we have mixed in with this grass that’s growing here, it’s a big benefit,” said Steve Voreh, compliance program manager in the renewable energy department with Dominion. “You can see here there’s almost no erosion at all, just a nice big green field with clover and other pollinators.”
Busy bees
Since August, the about 14-acre site Dominion Energy leases – has been home to about 45,000 bees in each of the about four hives made with wood and nailed together at the corner joints, for a total of about 180,000.
Burden bears the costs of the bees, with room to add another four hives and possibly up to 24 across the whole site. He’ll check on them by testing the pollen for chemicals and weighing them to make sure they get enough food. He’ll harvest about 20 pounds of honey, with about 60 to 80 pounds left so the bees can make it through the winter.
Italian Honey Bees at Dominion Energy’s Black Bear Solar project in Buckingham County. (Courtesy of Dominion Energy)
The hives join the roughly 200 that Burden has at 10 locations across the state to sell product at his shop on State Route 151 in Nelson County, turn it into mead or let his daughter consume it to avoid her needing daily allergy shots.
“Virginia is probably the allergy capital of the world,” Burden said.
The goal
Tension between solar developers and the farming community is centered around the Virginia Clean Economy Act, a 2020 law that seeks to transition Dominion to renewable generation sources that don’t emit climate changing emissions by 2045.
Developers want to build, but farmers are concerned about land loss and disturbances.
The idea of honey bees is an extension of other agrivoltaics efforts that use sheep to rotationally graze about 40 acres of land every few days, and potentially planting crops on the middle of panels after more research is done.
“Dominion is very focused on looking at agrivoltaics right now with its solar farms,” said Tim Eberly, a Dominion spokesperson. “We’re exploring other sites where we could put bee hives.”
Adam Fillius, electrical distribution program manager at Dominion Energy, stands next to the Italian honey bees and solar panels at the Black Bear Solar facility in Buckingham County. (Charlie Paullin/Virginia Mercury)
Martha Moore, senior vice president of governmental relations with the Virginia Farm Bureau who has pushed for legislation to preserve farmland, said the concept of agrivoltaics is “interesting,” but the jury is still out as Virginia Tech conducts research on the viability of the concept.
“We’re certainly open to the discussion,” said Moore, while also wanting some more details: “What does that entail? How is it economically viable for farmers?”
But for Burden, the project with Dominion is a “very promising” part of the transition to a natural environment.
“The other thing that’s promising is, what better opportunity do you have to be right in the middle of all the farmers to help educate them to strike a balance?” he said.
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