More good bee news I think

[kebee]

 Read this this morning. hope it is a help for the bees
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/02/25/2972209/usda-spending-3m-to-feed-honeybees.html

[Marbees]

Looks like a good idea, thanks for the link kebee

[kebee]

Thanks iddee for putting it in the right post place , right after I posted I realize I had it wrong place.

Ken

[Perry]

I'm really glad you posted that Ken. When I was at the commercial keeper's meeting on Wednesday, I mentioned that I had read something somewhere that in the states they were helping farmers to build up or maintain windrows to help the local pollinators. I was wondering if there might be some sort of tax benefit looked up up here that would encourage the same thing. This article supports that and I will certainly save it.

[blueblood]

Good article and news.  Now, they just need to focus on the sprays.

[riverbee]

wow, thanks for posting this ken, i am going to ask our local farmers about this, and we have two that lease land from us.

[Bakersdozen]

A fellow beekeeper just sent me the same article from another source.  Good news for all in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas.  Maybe this will spread.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?

[riverbee]

we don't qualify for this but our 2 farmers would, went looking for the application and information. we have 3 weeks before the deadline of march 21st, to get them to apply.  wish me luck!

[Ray]

Alright, Ill be the bubble buster
I have not seen any range stock in Michigan, they are all kept in large pens and the feed brought to them.
Alfalfa loses a LOT of it's food value when it flowers. It is harvested in or before the bud stage.
Cover crops are temporary and are killed and planted over, long before they produce any nectar.
Bee friendly plantings in fence rows will only bring the bees areas guaranteed to be sprayed with something.
Sorry, I think it's just another 'feel good' batch of junk
The USDA used to pay farmer to set aside crop land to decrease production and increase prices. Modifying this program to set aside a farmer's less profitable lands and then pay to plant bee friendly shrubs and trees. Enforcing pesticide laws and licenses would also help.
Where is the smiley standing on the soap box?

[apisbees]

the program will only work till the money runs out. crops use to be rotated to replenish the nitrogen in the soils but the the use of ammonia fertilizers and the increase in yield in tonnage and feed energy of corn over other crops, farmers are not going to switch. and herbicides will still be sprayed for weed control. The sad thing is that anything other than the planted crop is considered a weed, including clover, alfalfa, even rape growing in a corn or alfalfa field is considered a weed.

[riverbee]

well ray, it might be 'feel good', but it might help us with my bees and to recoup some of our costs in all the planting we did in the fence rows of what they are offering the farmers, but not the beekeepers?  makes no sense if you look at the application.  i know one of our farmers would probably be willing to sign up for it just to help out and has offered to do so in the past for bee friendly plantings.  we took away a fair amount of their cropland, and requested no more corn but soybeans instead, and asked the other one to consider helping us out with plantings.

one of our farmers sprayed herbicides, that was stopped a few years ago.  the other one doesn't spray.

[iddee]

Ray, the beek I worked for in Wisconsin would haul 2000 hives from Fl. to Ws. for the Alfalfa honey, then cut hay and sell semi loads of the hay. One year he said he got a million dollars of honey alone between the Alfalfa, dandelions, and Orange crops. I think he must have let the Alfalfa bloom before cutting.

[Bakersdozen]

Alright, Ill be the bubble buster

Alfalfa loses a LOT of it's food value when it flowers. It is harvested in or before the bud stage.

 Enforcing pesticide laws and licenses would also help.

Ray,  you are correct.  Farmers used to let the alfalfa bloom, but now realize that it does lose a lot of it's nutritional value. 

Educating farmers and public response to pesticide companies would have a bigger impact.
This program may be a place to start.  After all, we are talking about it.

[LazyBkpr]

Yep, the alfalfa field next to my fields gets cut 4 times a year, JUST before it blooms.
   I can't count flowers, clover or any other cover crop toward taxes, EXCEPT alfalfa..  so despite wanting other types of flowering plants, it looks like there will be about three hundred acres of Alfalfa around here eventually.

[riverbee]

anything we have planted, or can get the farmers to plant in smaller plots, alfalfa, clover,etc won't be cut before the bloom.  what we point out to these fellers, is that they are hunters as well....

[riverbee]

my thanks to kebee for posting this link.  after a fair bit of research and some phone calls, we qualify for this program, and will be completing an application for it. i originally thought we didn't, but we do.  after talking with our local usda, we may be able to also utilize it for establishing an area on our property that was pasture land at one time to establish foraging plants as well as trees as a windbreak for my hives.

[riverbee]

we were eligible and were accepted for this program through the usda.

the news release outlines the program:
Special Honey Bee Conservation

i have also attached a pdf file outlining some details.

thanks ken for posting the original article and starting this thread.  would never have known about it.