Iowa town helps save the bees

[Zweefer]

http://www.popsci.com/Cedar-Rapids-Iowa-save-bee-pollinator

[riverbee]

that's pretty cool zweef.

we are also planting for the pollinators in several sections on our land.  we did get a federal grant to help us out with costs, it sorta takes a 'dent' out of the cha ching part, but not much.  it is and has been an endeavor in corn and soybean country along a river, and part of our land on the river that was stripped of bedrock and where the staging took place. i do have to say, our labor in the last 5 years, and the expense, we are now seeing the difference it can make. we have a long ways to go.

[Chip Euliss]

It's refreshing to see this type of community action.  The state and federal government have programs and many of the NGO conservation groups are getting involved as well.  Part of my work in the job I retired from helped form and refine many of the USDA and DOI programs.  The sad part is that it took some real scary declines in habitat, and in our pollinators to get the ball rolling.  Let's hope that momentum continues.

Each year when I go to California, I hear from more and more people that have given up on honey entirely because the forage base in their summer locations is so low.  Their goal now is to simply keep the bees healthy for pollination and forget about honey and other hive products.  The reason is the declining nutritional value of our contemporary landscapes for pollinators.  Those beekeepers have shifted (and many more I suspect will as time goes on) to almost a conventional livestock approach where they provide the bulk of the nutrition for their bees artificially.  As long as the demand for pollination of crops remains high and growers pay enough to get bees on location, the industry will continue but along a far different path than just a decade or so ago.  Very different for our native pollinators; without the right habitat, they will be gone.

[LazyBkpr]

Thats pretty cool!  I have been to their meetings a few times.