USDA spending $3M to feed honeybees in Midwest

[unhappycamper]

http://gazette.com/usda-spending-3m-to-feed-honeybees-in-midwest/article/feed/93887



In this May 22, 2013 photo provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, honeybees with "saddlebags" of pollen attached to their hind legs return to an apiary in Washington, D.C. The USDA hopes to help honeybees by providing $3 million to farmers and ranchers in five states to improve their pastures. It turns out that dairy cows and bees like many of the same plants.

USDA spending $3M to feed honeybees in Midwest
Associated Press Updated: February 25, 2014 at 7:45 am • Published: February 25, 2014

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend millions of dollars to help farmers and ranchers improve pastures in five Midwestern states to provide food for the nation's struggling honeybees under a program to be announced Tuesday.

Commercial honeybees pollinate an estimated $15 billion worth of produce each year. Many beekeepers bring hives to the Upper Midwest in the summer for bees to gather nectar and pollen for food, then truck them in the spring to California and other states to pollinate everything from almonds to apples to avocadoes.

But agricultural production has been threatened by a more than decade-long decline in commercial honeybees and their wild cousins due to habitat loss and pesticide use. Colony collapse disorder, in which honey bees suddenly disappear or die, has made the problem worse, boosting losses over the winter to as much as 30 percent per year.

The USDA hopes to stem those losses by providing more areas for bees to build up food stores and strength for winter. The new program, details of which were provided to The Associated Press ahead of the announcement, will be "a real shot in the arm" for improving bees' habitat and food supply, said Jason Weller, chief of USDA's National Resources Conservation Service.

[postulater]

1. Hopefully this effort will help the monarchs too. nt