PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve in Portsmouth, Virginia, has decided to try “goatscaping.”

Staff at the preserve has hired a landscape company called RVA Goats, which is based in Richmond. A team of about 80 goats and sheep are helping to control the invasive wisteria that has taken over a couple of acres of the property.

“So, the English ivy on the ground, the sheep are very effective at getting that, and then the goats are good at climbing and getting at some of these vines,” explained Kristi Orcutt, owner of RVA Goats.

Executive Director of Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve Ashley Morgan says this is the first time they’ve done this.

“About a year ago, we discovered that the vines in this area had really invaded the forest and taken down the canopy,” said Morgan.

She said they invited experts from the state forestry department and also city landscapers to look at the problem.

“Doing nothing is not an option because the invasive wisteria will continue to spread and continue to take down the native trees,” Morgan added.

Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve was established in 1997 and is a 142-acre urban wildlife preserve.

The owner of RVA Goats says her company is keeping busy, often hired by homeowners and business owners.

“We also get hired by cemeteries, especially African American cemeteries that are historically under-funded and under-managed,” described Orcutt. “I’ll send the goats in and within a week, I’m seeing these beautiful works of art, these stone markers.”

The University of Richmond is one of their next jobs, stated Orcutt. She added that the goats and sheep are used to clear streambeds and also to model and demonstrate sustainability for their ecology students.

Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve plans to use the goats and sheep through the end of the week. Morgan said the cost was covered by a grant through the Rotary Club of Portsmouth and the Southeast Virginia Community Foundation.

They hope to gain more human volunteers to help until they can rent out the goats again in spring.

This story was originally published by Angela Bohon at WTKR.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — In the world of honeybees, it’s all the buzz: an agricultural mystery as complex as a beehive.

“There seems to be no end in sight,” said beekeeper Don Shump. “It's never boring.”

For 10 years, Shump, the owner of the Philadelphia Bee Company, has faithfully tended to beehives, selling the honey they produced to the public.

Then, one day, something changed.

“I walked into my honey house and one of my workers was cracking open a container of honey,” Shump recalled. “And I walked in and I said, ‘Who's eating maple bacon?’”

No one was.

The unusual smell was coming from the honey.

“I'd given it a taste and I was like, ‘I don't know what this is,’” Shump said.

Other beekeepers in the area started noticing the same thing in their honey.

“We sent our honey samples up to the labs to determine what it is, to try to do some sleuthing,” Shump said.

The agricultural detective they turned to for help? Robyn Underwood of Penn State University answered the call.

“We launched an investigation into where this strange new honey was coming from,” she said.

After multiple tests, including running a DNA profile on the honey, the culprit turned out to be the Asian lanternfly.

It’s an invasive species that began appearing in the Philadelphia area several years ago and has now spread to multiple states. Lanternflies can be destructive, potentially responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in agricultural damage.

“What they’re really interested in is sucking out plant sap,” Underwood said.

That is where the honeybees come in; they access what the lanternflies have left behind and add it to their honey.

“We do know that it’s safe for people to eat and it’s safe for honeybees as well,” Underwood said.

The middle of Philadelphia isn’t exactly the kind of place where you would expect an agricultural drama to play out, but that’s exactly what happened, and the result has been delicious.

“It got paired with the blue cheese and people went nuts over it. They loved it,” Shump said. “And at that point, I said, ‘Well, we might have something here.’”

The Philadelphia Bee Company calls the new honey flavor the “Doom Bloom.” Yet, there’s no love lost for the lowly lanternfly.

“They're a horrible invasive species and they're not something we want around here,” Shump said. “However, you know, if we can take advantage of them, however we can until we can get rid of them, then we'll make good on a bad thing.”

It’s a bad thing that turned out to be pretty tasty.