South Dakota is one of five states to receive a portion of an $8 million dollar US Department of Agriculture grant to help honeybees. USDA officials say the grant is an incentive-type program designed to help farmers and ranchers implement native flowering plants on their land which officials say helps enhance forage habitat for honeybees.
Recent research shows honeybee populations are declining, not only in South Dakota, but globally. US Department of Agriculture conservation officials say bee keepers are now losing an unprecedented and unsustainable thirty to thirty-five percent of their hives each year. Officials cite habitat loss, parasites, mites, and fungi as contributing factors.
The USDA is helping combat this decline by offering grant money to qualifying producers in five states, including South Dakota, that help bolster honeybee populations by planting native wildflowers on their land.
State Conservationist Jeff Zimprich says South Dakota is among a handful of states where more than one half of all commercially managed honeybees take time off during summer months to recuperate after pollinating crops in California and Texas.
“The honeybee industry is quite a large industry in our state so if we provide good habitat that means that that industry thrives and does a good job. Our state will also benefit in many other ways from this habitat that will be provided. These same areas that we’re going to provide additional habitat on are also going to provide erosion control benefits to our state, but the other thing that they’re going to do is normally the same area and the type of vegetation that a honeybee would like would be the same kind of areas that any ground-nesting birds would use a lot for brood-rearing, raising their young,” says Zimprich.
Zimprich says many birds find insects to feed their young in areas abundant with flowering plants and that South Dakota crops like canola, buckwheat, soybean, alfalfa, and sunflower also benefit from healthy pollinator populations. He says interested producers can contact their local Farm Service Agency for eligibility criteria.
