New USDA Funding to Help Beekeepers in Flooded Areas
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We’re happy to announce that we have received funding from USDA-NIFA to help beekeepers in Western North and South Carolina grow their honey bee colonies back after devastating losses from Hurricane Helene. In collaboration with Clemson University, the NC State Apiculture Program secured a 1-year grant titled “Restoring the managed honey bee population in southern Appalachia following historic flooding” to conduct numerous trainings on queen rearing in the region to give the tools to local beekeepers to make splits from surviving colonies.
The catastrophic damage to the area includes significant agricultural impacts, including crops and livestock. What is often neglected during these times are the ecosystem services that honey bees and other pollinators play in production agriculture. Beehives are often aggregated in apiaries near sources of water, but unfortunately this has made them 
susceptible to unexpected flood damage following torrential rains. While we are still assessing the losses of the managed honey bee population, what is clear is a significant need for beekeepers to grow back their stock. This can be accomplished by taking the surviving colonies and splitting them multiple times to create new colonies, but the significant limiting factor is having sufficient queens to repopulate the new colonies. Also critical is the need to determine the extent of pathogen outbreaks as a result of the environmental stressors. We aim to hold multiple workshops on queen rearing, with minimal fees for affected beekeepers, so that they will have the specialized equipment and training to raise sufficient queens to grow new colonies. We will also sample regional colonies to quantify any outbreaks of common diseases and provide BMPs for beekeepers. This in turn will enable the local beekeeping community to respond to the recent and unexpected losses, as well as be more sustainable and resilient to future perturbations to the managed honey bee population.
We will be planning and conducting workshops and BEES Academies across the region as part of this initiative, so please check our website for updates on opportunities!