Mississippi farmers, beekeepers agree to “bee aware”

*First appeared in the June 25 edition of the Laurel Chronicle newspaper

When I first heard about the global decline of honeybee populations, I worried. Where are they going? And why? From news articles to documentaries to conversations with others who shared my concerns, it was clear that no one had answers.

Overwhelmed with a sense of abandonment, I decided the hard-working honeybees must have gotten fed up with the human condition, leaving us a la Atlas Shrugged.

For more concrete data, I visited the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website to investigate “Colony Collapse Disorder,” its history, and any known causes.

In 2006, some beekeepers reported losses of 30 to 90 percent of their hives, an unusually high loss ratio. According to the USDA, the main symptom of CCD is “very low or no adult honeybees present in the hive but with a live queen and no dead honeybee bodies present.” Managed honeybee colonies have decreased in number from five million in the 1940s to just 2.5 million today. To date, researchers have not identified a cause of CCD.

Great. So humans aren’t the only ones abandoned, but that seems of little comfort when no one has any idea on how to deal with the revolutionary little creatures.

No one, that is, except Mississippi farmers and beekeepers who are working together to promote honeybee population growth and strong agricultural partnerships through the Honeybee Stewardship Program.

The Miss. Farm Bureau Federation has worked alongside the Miss. Beekeepers Association, Miss. Department of Agriculture and Commerce, Miss. State University Extension Service, and other partners to develop standards to “serve as a basic guideline for cooperative standards that should exist between farmers and beekeepers when bees are located in or near agricultural production areas.”

The issue here is that beekeepers sometimes place their hives in close proximity to farms, putting the bees at risk of coming into contact with pesticides used at these farms. Working together, the beekeepers and producers have adopted several strategies to ensure mutually beneficial agricultural and bee yields.

These strategies include:

“Know your farmer, know your beekeeper”: Farmers and beekeepers are encouraged to develop strong relationships and exchange basic information, like name, phone number, location of hive, commodities grown in the fields adjacent to hive locations, and general information on the type and frequency of insecticides applied on these commodities.

Mississippi “Bee Aware” Flag: This effort has led to the creation of a unified flagging system to clearly mark apiary locations near crop fields. The flag – which is, of course, four stripes of intermittent black and yellow – provides a landmark that is highly visible to farmers operating ground-driven equipment or aerial applicators. The “Bee Aware” flag reminds farmers and others to take great care with insecticide applications so as to eliminate or reduce the risk to the bees.

Other strategies include common-sense ideas, like using GPS to locate beehives and accessing wind direction before applying pesticides.

The USDA says bee pollination is responsible for more than $15 billion in increased crop value annually, and one out of every three times we take a bite of food benefits directly or indirectly from honeybees. That said, it just makes sense that Mississippi farmers and beekeepers would develop a partnership to help preserve these precious pollinators.

The next time you see a news report about the disappearing insects, remember to thank your local farmers and beekeepers for doing their part to save the buzz!