Bee City USA—Martinsville, VA

04/21/2026

04/21/2026

What a beautiful day to celebrate our planet 🌎🐝

Bee City Martinsville was honored to be part of the Earth Day celebration at Patrick & Henry Community College, recognizing their designation as a Bee Campus USA affiliate!

This partnership strengthens our shared mission:
🌼 Supporting pollinators
🌿 Expanding native habitats
📚 Educating our community

We’re excited to work alongside PHCC as we continue building a more pollinator-friendly Martinsville.

Come see us and learn how you can help!

03/25/2026

🐝✨ BIG NEWS, MARTINSVILLE! ✨🐝

It’s official!

The Martinsville City Council has proclaimed April 2026 as Bee City Month 🌼🌿

This is a huge step forward in our mission to support pollinators, protect our environment, and educate our community—especially our youth—on the importance of bees and other vital species.

We are incredibly grateful to our City Council for recognizing the importance of this work and standing with us in creating a more pollinator-friendly Martinsville 💛

🌸 Throughout April, Bee City Martinsville will be buzzing with activities, education, and opportunities for YOU to get involved!

Stay tuned for upcoming events—and join us as we continue to grow something beautiful together.

🐝 Bee engaged. Bee informed. Bee the change.

03/14/2026

🌼🐝 It’s a bee-autiful day in Martinsville! 🐝🌼

Come out and join us for the 5th Annual “Books & Bunnies” event hosted by the Harvest Youth Board! 📚🐰

The Bee City Martinsville team is buzzing around today and we’d love for you to stop by our table! Come say hello, learn about pollinators, and discover simple ways you can help bees, butterflies, and other pollinator friends thrive right here in our community.

🌸 Bring the kids
🌸 Explore the event
🌸 Visit our Bee City table and say hi!

Let’s celebrate spring, books, bunnies… and the pollinators that help our world bloom. 🌷🐝

📍 Location: Smith River Sports Complex
🕐 Today – come by anytime!

Bee there or bee square! 🐝

03/12/2026

Purple Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) is blooming in yards, gardens, roadsides, fallow fields, parking lots, and disturbed areas right now. In these habitats, it often forms dense patches. This member of the mint family (Family Lamiaceae; look for the square stems) is native to Eurasia, but is common across much of the United States today. One of its distinctive features is the purple tint to the young leaves near the top of the plant. That explains the ‘purple’ part to the name, but why ‘dead nettle?’ The leaves have hairs like a nettle, but they lack a sting, so the plant is called a ‘dead’ nettle. Some people forage for the young leaves and add them to a salad. Beyond being 100% confident in your identification of the plant, though, also remember that the plant may have been recently sprayed with herbicides or pesticides. Given its habitat preferences, this is a possibility in many places of the places you might find Purple Deadnettle.

Purple Deadnettle is listed as a non-native invasive plant in Maryland, Kentucky, and New Hampshire. In general, state invasive plant lists focus more on trees, bushes, vines, and grasses than on forbs/herbs like Purple Deadnettle. There are exceptions to this, of course.

Purple Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) gets visited by some of our native bees, such as the two-spotted bumblebee (Bombus bimaculatus). Purple Deadnettle is better than turf grass at this point in its widespread naturalization across North America; however, even better would be to add some native bee pollinator plants into your landscape. Native bees and butterflies are co-adapted to native plants, so adding native plants to your landscape is an easy way to help them out. Native plants also provide an edible food source for caterpillars of moths and butterflies.

The Xerces Society has a free online guide to native plants that benefit native bees in each region of the United States. I’ve linked it in the comments. See what beautiful flowers you can grow in your landscape to help support native bees and butterflies! 🐝 🦋

02/07/2026

🐝🌼 Calling all bug lovers! 🌼🐝

We’re buzzing with excitement to join Bug Fest at the Virginia Museum of Natural History!

Bee City USA – Martinsville, VA will have a table full of bee-tastic fun for kids and families.

🖍️ Color
🐝 Learn
🌸 Explore
🦋 Protect pollinators

Stop by, meet some friendly bugs (on paper 😄), and learn why bees matter so much to our world.

👉 Free activities • Big smiles • Tiny pollinators doing BIG work

01/24/2026

Martinsville is proud to be a Bee City USA community 🐝🌱

With guidance from the Xerces Society, Bee City Martinsville works to protect pollinators through education, habitat awareness, and community engagement.

Your donation helps us:
• Promote pollinator-friendly practices
• Educate our community
• Support a healthier local ecosystem

👉 Support the buzz here:
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/support-bee-city-usa-martinsville

Because a thriving community starts with a thriving environment 💛

Why Bee City USA – Martinsville MattersPollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds are essential to our food system and local ecosystems — yet their populations are declining at alarming rates.Bee City USA – Martinsville is part of a national initiative of the Xerces Society for Inver...

10/04/2025

Bee Alley on Lester St today at Octoberfest: Beegins With You Foundation, Bee City, SW Piedmont Beekeepers Association, Hives for Heroes

10/04/2025

It’s a beautiful day for Uptown Octoberfest. Come by the Bee City tent on Lester St and learn about creating pollinator friendly habitats.

03/20/2025

🐝 We can’t wait! Join us as we welcome this new chapter to our area!🐝

🏵️🐝 Ridgeway Bee City Festival! 🐝🏵️

The Town of Ridgeway is buzzing with excitement! We are proud to announce our official designation as a Bee City USA town, and we’re celebrating with a Bee City Festival!

📅 Date: Saturday , May 3rd, 2025
📍 Location: Ridgeway Town Park
Almond Street, Ridgeway, Va
⏰ Time: 10:00am to 3:00pm

Join us for a fun-filled day of activities celebrating the vital role of pollinators in our community. Enjoy local vendors, educational exhibits, live music, and family-friendly entertainment.

🌟 Lil Miss Queen Bee of Ridgeway Contest! 🌟
As part of the festivities, we’re hosting the Lil Miss Queen Bee of Ridgeway contest, where young participants can showcase their bee spirit and love for nature!

Come out and celebrate with us as we embrace our new Bee City USA designation and work together to protect our pollinators. Let’s keep Ridgeway buzzing! 🐝✨

For more details or contest registration, contact [email protected].