Corporate Property Management Manager Tim Grissom helps install four honey bee hives on the roof at CBC's headquarters on Western Blvd in Raleigh.
Capitol Broadcasting Company's headquarters on Western Blvd is home to the latest in digital television, cutting edge technology, state-of-the-art antennae and the leading news reports, but on Friday, August 14, 2015, the campus literally had the biggest buzz in the Triangle. Four beehives containing 35,000 honey bees moved into their new home atop the WRAL news building.
It all started on the roof of American Tobacco, a division of CBC, in downtown Raleigh. ATC intern Leigh Kathryn Bonner had a dream to bring awareness to the drastic worldwide decline of the honey bee population while assisting in sustainability by providing hives in cities, where bees thrive due to the availability of diverse food sources. Her idea became a start-up, Bee Downtown, housed in American Underground. She started with hives on the roof of American Tobacco. CBC marks her expansion into Raleigh.
Three generations of bee keepers: Bee Downtown Founder Leigh-Kathryn Bonner poses with her uncle, Jerry Flanagan (left), and her grandfather, Harold Flanagan at the CBC bee hive installation.
The installation on the roof Friday was wonderful! said Bonner. Not only did we have beekeepers from across North Carolina helping with the install, we also had some amazing volunteers from the community out to help move all the boxes and equipment up on the rooftop. Throughout the install we had CBC employees from all different divisions up on the roof observing and even helping out at times! We now have 4 rooftop hives (each representing a different division of the company) and one hive that will remain empty that is on display in the gardens for the community to see!
The move-in was particularly special for Bonner because her grandfather came to help her and her uncle install the hives on the CBC roof - three generations of beekeepers working together. Corporate Property Management Manager Tim Grissom worked closely with Bonner and her team in organizing the move on CBC's end.
CBC is the perfect place to roll out Bee Downtown's expansion into Raleigh because the CBC grounds team has gone above and bee'-yond to make the campus gardens bee friendly, said Bonner. Tim and his team have really made the grounds the perfect place for the pollinators to have lots of food and stay happy and healthy while foraging. While the bees will love the WRAL garden they will also fly up to three miles away from the hive. They will have great areas to forage through NC State, Pullen and Dorothea Dix as well. Recent studies show that honey bees are healthier in urban areas. So we cannot wait to see how the hives at CBC do!
Several CBC'ers took to the roof to observe the process, providing reports for WRAL-TV viewers and social media.
WRAL-TV News Photographer Andrew Cumbee captures the action as four honey bee hives are installed on the roof at CBC's headquarters on Western Blvd in Raleigh.
WRAL-TV News Photographer Andrew Cumbee manned the video camera on the roof to capture WRAL-TV Anchor Renee Chou sharing the hive move-in for WRAL newscasts. He has a connection that made the assignment especially fun for him.
My takeaway from the new additions to the CBC family is one of pure excitement, said Cumbee of the hives. It brought back many memories of when I grew up in Eastern NC (Red Oak, NC) on a farm that had five hives. I can remember going to the mountains with my family and driving 5 hours back home with honey bees buzzing in my ear. It gave me a responsibility as a kid to learn about what they do and how to take care of them. Seeing all the equipment, such as the sugar water and smoke cans, brought back a lot of wonderful memories of bee keeping as a kid and I know the ones on campus will not only produce wonderful honey, but make the gardens that much prettier! It was an honor to take part of a new era at CBC!!
FOX 50 Creative Services Producer Glenn Dion took a camera up on the roof to capture some still shots.
I really didn't know what to expect, said Dion. Bees were flying everywhere, but didn't even seem to notice us. And we got to taste honey directly from the FOX 50 hive; it was delicious. Really a unique shooting experience.
Four honey bee hives are installed on the roof at CBC's headquarters on Western Blvd in Raleigh on Friday, August 14, 2015.
Four hives with honey bees now reside on the roof of the building housing WRAL's newsroom, as well as offices for FOX 50 and CBC New Media. The WRAL antenna, the one we light up for the holidays, stands guard above the hives. SKY 5 takes off and lands on the opposite roof, of the building housing CBC's corporate offices and television and digital media sales offices.
Bee Downtown placed a fifth empty hive in the WRAL Gardens, so visitors can see up close what a hive looks like without having to worry about bee stings. Honey bees normally sting only to protect the hive. The rooftop location of CBC's hives makes it highly unlikely anyone on the campus will be stung.
Stay tuned to Capcom for video of the installation
LINKS
Learn more about honey bees and the work of Bee Downtown on their website and Facebook page
Learn more about the American Tobacco Hives in our previous Capcom story: Bees and the City: A Surprisingly Good Combination
Thanks to Leigh-Kathryn Bonner, WRAL-TV's Steve Hammel, WRAL-TV's Andrew Cumbee, and WRAL.com for these capcom photos.
Three generations of bee keepers: Bee Downtown Founder Leigh-Kathryn Bonner poses with her uncle, Jerry Flanagan (left), and her grandfather, Harold Flanagan at the CBC bee hive installation.
Four honey bee hives are installed on the roof at CBCs headquarters on Western Blvd in Raleigh on Frida
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Corporate Property Management Manager Tim Grissom helps install four honey bee hives on the roof at CBC's headquarters on Western Blvd in Raleigh.
