The Habitat Crisis #4 - Bee and Butterfly Fund (302)

302 - The Habitat Crisis #4 - Bee and Butterfly Fund

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Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Hey, everybody, welcome to this fourth episode in the habitat series brought to you by the Minnesota Honey Producers Association. Becky, this has been a great series we've been running all month.

Becky: Hasn't it? I feel like I've learned a lot and it has been really fun to piece these episodes together and just build on them. I feel like we're at the grand finale today.

Jeff: This is the end when all the great fireworks go off.

Becky: Fireworks or maybe just flowers bloom. How's that?

Jeff: That's probably better. Well, the fun thing about the series is, as beekeepers, we often talk about habitat, and we've learned that the decreasing amount of habitat is one of the prime causes and stressors of all pollinators including our honeybees. We're actually hearing some of the details behind the habitat with our guests this month, and it's been really enlightening.

Becky: It's like we're hearing the rest of the story and--

Jeff: The story behind the headlines.

Becky: The story behind the headline and also the fact that we've moved forward. Habitat was identified a while ago. It snuck up on some people but it was identified as a big issue for honeybees and other pollinators, but I love that we are making progress, and that we're hearing the bad news along with the good news and the good news is that we're moving forward.

Jeff: Yes, we're moving forward. Today's guest is Pete Berthelsen and Zac Browning. Now we've had Pete on the show in 2021 when Kim was here, and we had him on as part of the Honey Bee Health Coalition series that we are running about the different programs. I'm looking forward to getting caught up with Pete. I've never met Zac before.

Becky: Zac's a commercial beekeeper and-- well, he can't hear me now so I can say it, but he runs an excellent operation, and he's in, I believe, North Dakota and Idaho. I will tell you it's very impressive and he's very respected by many beekeepers out there. He's very passionate about habitat, and he played a big role in getting this project going. Very excited to hear his updates and Pete's updates about The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund.

Jeff: That'll be great. I look forward to hearing from them right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Jeff: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. Sitting across this great big virtual Beekeeping TodayPodcast table are Pete Berthelsen and Zac Browning. Welcome to the show, guys.

Zac Browning: Hi, everybody.

Pete Berthelsen: Morning. Looking forward to the conversation today.

Becky: Thank you both for being here. We really appreciate it.

Pete: Anything for Becky.

Becky: I really appreciate hearing that too, Pete. Thank you.

Jeff: So many guests say that too and I just sit here waving my hand.

Becky: Don't understand why they say that. To be very honest, both Pete and Zac have saved me and helped me so often. I think the last time I saw Zac, I had lost a speaker for a panel and I grabbed him and said, "Can you do this panel in five minutes?" He's like, "Oh, okay, sure."

Zac: If I remember right, that actually worked out pretty well for both of us, so great.

Jeff: For our listeners who don't know who either of you are, and Pete, you were on the show back in 2021 with Kim and I, tell us a little bit about yourselves, a little background and why you are doing what you are doing today. We'll start with you, Pete. We'll go alphabetically.

Pete: I'm the executive director of The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund. I'm joining this podcast today from Central Nebraska where I'm a farmer, rancher, wildlife biologist that has spent my career working on designing, establishing, and managing high-quality habitat. For the purposes of this podcast, we often refer to that as honey bee forage.

Zac: I'm Zac Browning and I'm a commercial beekeeper from Jamestown, North Dakota. I'm very, very passionate about Honey Bee Habitat. It has become the key to my livelihood over the years. Along with Pete, co-founded The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund going on almost a decade ago. Currently, I serve the board as chair. I enjoy working with Pete on this extraordinary project.

Pete: You just experienced a significant morph in both Zac and myself. I, as a biologist, referred to it as forage when it was always habitat, and Zac, as a beekeeper who always called it forage, just referred to it as habitat. We have crossed paths on that one.

Zac: For everybody out there, it's really the same thing.

Jeff: The Venn diagram has merged.

Pete: Absolutely.

Jeff: Well, fantastic. Who is and what is The Bee and Butterfly Fund?

Pete: I'll go first. I will say that when Zac and I met, which was another story for another podcast, but it's a good story, but anyway, when we met, you could boil down our many, many conversations and interactions to this. Pollinator habitat is not rocket science. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be uber-expensive, and we can do this. Zac rolled up his sleeves and brought all kinds of people together.

This notion, this idea of something called The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund that would design what we call next-gen conservation projects, because they're different. They're designed with innovation and more results. Came together and we offered them in a way that a lot of people that have an interest in providing pollinator habitat-- We're talking a lot about honey bees today, but this benefit spills over into a whole laundry list of benefits.

I often refer to pollinators as a unique glue that can connect all kinds of things from soil health to water quality to other pollinators like monarch butterflies, native bees, but then food sustainability, renewable energy, climate change. The list just goes on that all these unique things that honey bees need for health and habitat and forage can connect to all these other things.

Jeff: It's the ultimate and mixed metaphors in terms of rising tide relifts all boats. You have a good habitat, everybody benefits.

Pete: We say that all the time.

Zac: As good as it feels to say that, it's also really important to understand that the story begins because that's what's missing. It's what's missing for all of those different stakeholders that Pete mentioned are glued together by this issue. Honeybees are suffering because there's not enough habitat and forage and lots of other species are also suffering for the same reason. American agriculture has advanced to the degree that it's very efficient. It's used the land in the most productive ways, but it's not failed to fill in all of the gaps. We have to find a way to replace what nature used to offer when there were more wild places.

We do it with less land. How do we do that? We have to engineer it because we can't just rely on the scraps of what's left to do it on their own. We need a program and we need biologists and we need seed, and we need willing participants and we need messengers. I think that Pete and I are becoming well-versed in trying to bring all of those pieces together as well.

Pete: I'll just add that, in 2014, Zac made a statement that I think still, a decade later, resonates today. That's that honeybees and other wildlife and things are really left with the scraps on the landscape. That's a very apt description.

Becky: Zac, I have to ask, because your operation is in the honey-producing state of the nation where you far exceed any other state in production, and you are passionate about this. Whenever I pull data for different states to show them honey production, I show them a graph that just tumbles down over the last 30 years. North Dakota goes up and down, but it's still very strong in honey production but you're passionate about this. What did you notice in your bees in your operation over time? How did this become a critical issue for you?

Zac: It didn't even begin in North Dakota, but that's really where this vision came about is here. My family began beekeeping in the early part of the 20th century. In 1921, my great-grandfather and my grandfather incorporated what is now Browning's Honey in southeast Idaho. They produced what, to me, even today, is a whopping yield on an average year. My father then followed in their foot footsteps and his agriculture changed. He produced less.

By the time my brothers and I were in the business, we could not eke out a living producing honey in southeast Idaho because the same changes that I've now witnessed in North Dakota had already taken place there. We were essentially looking for better pasture to raise honey, and we moved the biggest portion of our outfit to North Dakota and bought a couple of operations here.

North Dakota, as Becky said, is the area where we consider to be the US honey basket. We're producing the most honey of any state and the states around us, including South Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota are also big honey-producing states. We came to greener pasture looking to produce more honey and immediately we saw the result which was we're producing more, but we're seeing the same changes. We're seeing parts of the landscape that support that production diminishing.

Over the last 24 years that I've lived in North Dakota, I've seen my bees produce less and less and less on an average yield. Why is North Dakota still number 1? At the same time, this same habitat depletion is taking place across the country. More and more operators, just like myself, are seeking out the best places, and North Dakota is still the best place, if not the only last good place where beekeepers can go without any kind of regulatory program prohibiting them from putting their bees where they want.

States like South Dakota and Montana and Wyoming, for that matter, have regulations that prevent beekeepers from putting more bees in an area than the state has deemed to be the stalking rate. It's often just a perimeter, if you will. North Dakota's wide open, and we now have almost a million hives of bees here every summer. When I came here in 2000, there was just a little bit more than 200,000 hives here on an annual basis. We've seen five times as many bees come to North Dakota over the last 25 years and so we're producing a lot of honey, but on a per-hive basis, North Dakota is not producing what it used to. We're producing far less than we used to. The reason? Habitat.

Becky: Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund has grown significantly in the last decade. Let's just start with the program that you began with and then move on to how you've scaled and moved into other territories.

Pete: When this idea, this notion was born almost on the back of a napkin, writing things out sitting around and talking about things, we started it as what we called a pilot program available just in North Dakota and South Dakota. We think this is a great idea. Will landowners, will people be interested in this? The answer to that was yes. Then we went from 2 states to 6 states to 8 to 10, and today, at 12.

We have a need to be in way more than 12 states. There's a lot of interest. We're trying to have concentric really well-thought-out growth. We're not just doing a shotgun pattern across doing something anywhere. We're trying to really be able to have an impact and work in an area, and then as the interest grows-- and our funding base, let's be honest about it, we're a nonprofit.

As our funding base grows and we're able to add in more states, we're doing that on almost an annual basis where we're adding in more states annually. Last year, we added in the states of Kentucky and Pennsylvania that get us to 12. Somebody would say, "Why aren't you in Texas?" Love to be in Texas, but we're growing to get there and we're focusing on those states that are the most important for two key factors; One, honeybee health habitat forage, just like you talked about with the Dakotas and Minnesota. Then the second thing is monarch butterfly population recovery.

We're trying to think about working on a wide suite of species, and the monarch butterfly, which is either the number 1 or number 2 most iconically recognized insect in the country. I'll let everybody else duke it out, whether the honeybee is number 1 or number 2 or what the order is. That species, the monarch butterfly, on December 4th of this year, a little bit more than a month from this podcast, there's going to be an Endangered Species Act listing on that species on December 4th. Think about that. One of the most iconically recognized insect species in the country that all four of us have certainly grown up seeing, knowing, experiencing is under consideration for that listing. Pretty dramatic.

Becky: Pete, can you explain what happens if somebody wants to participate in the program?

Pete: Yes. It's a really easy process. You go to our website and there's an application form on there in which you give us some information that talks about your project, your potential project, where you're located, what the site currently looks like, and then we go through a series of providing resources back. We have what I think is just a tremendous resource for people that is called our Pollinator Habitat Establishment and ManagementGuide. That's available free resource. It's available for anybody. I've been doing this long time and it's a really, really well-developed guide that walks somebody through from A to Z that has maybe never done this before.

"I have the interest, I want to benefit pollinators, I don't know what to do. How do I go about it?" Walks you through from A to Z. Anyway, every one of those works through our system of steps, and every one of them is then contacted for a personal one-on-one conversation and a set of guidance. Every project can receive free pollinator seed mixture. Free. We all heard, growing up in school, there's no such thing as a free lunch. This is pretty darn close to the free lunch. Free seed, and free one-on-one technical guidance for your individual project.

Becky: The minimum land size?

Pete: 2 acres or larger. That is not to say that something that is smaller than 2 acres is not valuable. That's one of the unique things about pollinators broadly is that, if you build it, they will come. Species pollinators fit that bill. For honey bee forage, if we're talking about how much honey can we produce? There is a size element to that, but for monarch butterflies, they're in our butterfly gardens, in our backyard, and that sort of thing. Can I elaborate on that a little bit and tell you a cool story?

Becky: Absolutely.

Pete: I think this is just a tremendous story about the, if you build it, they will come. The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund was involved with the University of Minnesota Bee Lab. You may know something about them, Becky, and working with them on a cool study in southeast Minnesota, where we were working with agriculture, taking The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund to seed mixture approach. We designed the seed mixtures and helped them with that. Here's the nuts and bolts of the really cool part. During that study, they identified five new native bee records for the state of Minnesota.

For people listening to the podcast, it's like, "Look, what does that mean?" Five native bee species never before recorded in the state of Minnesota, were identified on Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund projects. That's like, throw the parade, let's party. That's really, really cool.

Jeff: Said we're going to set up the fireworks for this episode.

Becky: I know. This is perfect. The excitement is building. Zac, can you share specifically because you're putting this into the ground, and then you're seeing what happens to your bees when they use it. Can you share what that looks like?

Zac: Yes, and I want to talk about how it happens. It's worked into my business conversation so well, because, as habitat declines across the landscape, we as beekeepers are charged with not only trying to produce a honey crop for our own wellbeing, but we're stewards of those bees, and so we're looking for the best habitat, the best locations, if you will, that we can place them in for their healths, and, of course, our benefit. When an area changes, when conservation land, and grassland, and other crops that might support bees are tilled under, and corn is planted, we pick those bees up and we move them to a better site.

As you might expect, it's a diminishing return. We're getting to a point where there's just not enough good places left, but we've had bees out here for a long time, and we've worked with landowners who are used to having them benefiting their gardens, and they're used to seeing them, used to talking about it with their grandkids, and they're used to getting a little bit of honey every fall. When we pick up those bees and we move them away to a greener pasture, we can find one, often we get a call from that landowner who said, "How come you took the bees away? We would like to have them back."

That's my opportunity to tell them this story that we had to move the bees. There wasn't enough food for them on your property anymore. Sad folks say, "Well, what can I do?" That's when the door opens for me to say, "Well, I'm a part of a program that restores habitat on areas that may not work in your farming plans to help bees." There are several landowners that I've worked with over the years that have installed Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund projects on their land, and we brought the bees back to those farms, and the bees have done as well, if not better, than they ever did before.

It's a thing to celebrate. It's something that they tell their neighbors about, and it's growing out here. People are becoming aware of what this means, and it's not just about honey bees. As Pete mentioned, there's benefits for a number of things that other people want too, like pheasants, for instance. There's a tremendous amount of habitat there that is perfect for all types of different birds. Where we've installed these projects on farms, we've had many different landowners comment about how they've seen the pheasants return.

This is just one example of some of the other benefits that are there, but we're finding terrific success in restoring viability to farms that were no longer viable for bees, by installing these projects.

Jeff: Let's take this opportunity to take a quick break, and we'll be right back after this word from our sponsors.

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Every year, for the last couple of years, the Minnesota honey producers have been at Farm Fest, and we've been in southern Minnesota, where thousands of people walk by our booth, and we have The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund flyer. We point to it, and we say, "If you have 2 or more acres of land, and you want to support habitat for pollinators and honeybees, this is a great program." The number of people who pick up that flyer is just always so amazing to me, and it's something where it's not like we're standing and passing it out, it's like, this is an option.

The other thing I've learned at Farm Fest is that farmers will come up to us and just say, "Hey, we're sorry. We're sorry because we know honeybees are struggling, and we're sorry." I think that the stories that both of you are telling, that project in southern Minnesota, they were overwhelmed with farmers who wanted to sign up for it, and with your experience, Zac, I think that key of engaging farmers and landowners who actually want to be part of the solution, but maybe didn't know how, or didn't know how easy you're going to make it for them, is so important, and it's important for everybody to hear that. That wasn't a question. [laughs]

Pete: Yes. Well, I'll just add to that, that we do absolutely try to make this easy. Because oftentimes we're working with acreage owners. "I have 10 acres, 15 acres, 20 acres, and the back area of it is in grass, and it's just hayed every year, and I would love to benefit Pollinator Habitat." It's a perfect example. The trick is that is the most challenging environment to convert to pollinator habitat, something that's in existing grass.

Again, most of them are like, "I want to do this. I have the land. I don't know how to do it." That's where we have this guide, "Start With," and then we have the one-on-one technical guidance that we take them through, and there are lots and lots of opportunities like that. Think about the state of Minnesota and the urbanization of the state and that sort of thing, and how many different homes there are that fall into that description that I just set up, scattered out across the country, and there's a very, very high interest in it.

Jeff: You said that there's 12 states that are part of the program now, Kentucky and PA being the last two. If you had your choice of the remaining states, what would be the next state you would like to get on your map?

Pete: There's 48 of them that I would like to get. [laughs] I've heard that but there's two ways that we expand. One is the amoeba continues to grow in the states that currently touch where we are; Oklahoma, Arkansas, West Virginia, New York, Montana, those sorts of things, but there is one other way, and that is if a state, Florida, if somebody from Florida picked up the phone and called us and said, "Why aren't you in Florida? It's a hugely important state for beekeeping," which it is, "our conversation with them would be, "We would love to be in Florida, and if you can help us fundraise in the state of Florida and get the bar to this level, we'll be there, and we'll do it." That's another way.

The bar is, it's six figures to bring the program to a state, but that's not an insurmountable bar, if you start thinking about, let's just keep pulling the thread on the state of Florida, how important bees are to the economy of the state of Florida. That's a state that has an awful lot of agricultural products that benefit from bees. That's not a big bar to get over financially, so that's the other way that can happen.

Becky: How much support are you getting from beekeepers?

Pete: Certainly, beekeepers, number 1, let's get in the way-back machine and go back to the story with the back of the napkin and that sort of thing. That was like 99% beekeepers that drove that whole thing with Zac being the pointy end of the spear and me being the 1% that's not a beekeeper, that was a part of that deal. It was really driven by beekeepers. I think it's really important to recognize that beekeepers, right out of the shoot, when I would say things like, "The Monarch butterfly needs to be your best friend." There was not a pushback to that.

Beekeepers were like it was not very hard to connect the breadcrumb trail to why doing things for Monarch butterflies brought in a bigger audience that would produce benefits for beekeeping. Beekeepers and beekeeping, the industry, honey packers, the beekeeping industry, individual beekeepers, commercial sideline, hobbyists, all of those have always been tremendously supportive of The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, and it's always going to be a foundational level of support for what makes us go.

Becky: I've seen these installations, and they're flowering next to each other, and those butterflies cross the line and go to the honeybee habitat, and those honeybees will sneak over and go over to the butterfly habitat. There is some sharing of resources.

Pete: A lot of sharing. Zac talked about his operation of landowners that he deals with where the hives left and they want them back, that sort of thing. Zac is in an incredibly unique position as a Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund participant as well. I would love to pull that thread and have him talk about what that's meant to him personally.

Zac: It's almost like putting on another hat to talk about that because I have 30 acres here on my property that we put into the program years ago. It was a new experience for me to do it and to witness its growth and development. It was really exciting because this was not just a place that I was trying to restore. It was my own. I got to see the change on my own property on a day-to-day basis. It was really amazing and it was fulfilling.

It's helped me to be a better promoter of the program with that experience and it's amazing what it has done. We've had a small apiary here on the property ever since I moved here, and we had about a decade's worth of experience before we did any enhancements at all, and probably 15 years before we actually planted the first seeds in The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund program.

We tried a few other things, but we've not had a lot of success, and the apiary was struggling. Now it's one of the best sites in my operation. My operation has over 800 sites and this one here with 30 acres of Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund seed mixtures is among the top five every single year. You could certainly make the argument, "Well, you're giving it other special treatment too. You're there, you're taking care of that stand, you're certainly not using any chemicals because you're a beekeeper and a farmer." Those things are true, but the effect cannot be ignored. We have really seen it push the limits in terms of what production can be here.

It gives me great faith that if we can continue to keep the ball rolling, we really can make a difference. As Pete mentioned, we're we're trying to move the needle. We're trying to create enough opportunity that beekeepers can actually produce enough honey to support more of our own consumption here in this country, and certainly improve their businesses. It's not all just about profit, it's about the health of the bees. That's what I'm seeing here, and it's my second point.

These bees are outperforming not just in terms of yield, but in terms of their health and their winter success, and their ability to pollinate crops. We're not losing bees at nearly the rate when they're next to this kind of habitat because they're getting the entire nutritional requirement that they need throughout the blooming period of the year to repopulate their hives and overcome all of the different stress and the diseases that they encounter through the year.

There's not a silver bullet for all of the issues that we have, but this is the closest that we can come. If we can produce what nature cannot in terms of providing the diet that the bees need, then we can produce robust colonies that are not immunocompromised, that are not having to choose between nothing and depleted, and maybe even treated pesticide or treated lands, lands that have been exposed to pesticide and other things. This clean forage that we're providing in these mixtures is giving them the building blocks that they need to be as healthy as they can possibly be.

Zac: Say it with me now.

[laughter]

Jeff: Step it through someone who says, "Hey, I have 10 acres and I'd like to get involved in the project." What will they experience? They download the resource guide. Just walk us through that.

Pete: The resource guide, that's something that's available to help them. The process is you go to our website beeandbutterflyfund.org, and you click on a program called Seed A Legacy. This is the main program that we're talking about. It's our pilot program, the first one that we have. We have other programs now, but it's our foundational program. They're going to click on that and they're going to start entering information, and then they're going to get a response back that asks a few more questions. That's really the application process. It's very simple, very straightforward.

They're going to be asked to provide information about where their project is located, what the current condition of the site is. That's all to put our team in a position to be able to have the most productive conversation with them when we come back with them. It's a very simple process, we've streamlined it and improved it and made it very easy for people as we've moved along since the start of this program.

Jeff: How long does that often take?

Pete: I would say it often takes a year because we want the site to be fully prepared before that seed arrives. If you go back to the example that I gave of the acreage owner with the 10 acres of grass, I'd like it to be a pollinator habitat, they're going to need to put one full growing season into preparing that site to be able to accept the seed and have it be a success.

That's also part of this application process as we want to get that process started as soon as we can. This is where the biologist in me would say, you don't ever want to shortcut that process, just by saying, "I don't want to wait a year, I want to do it now." Then we will end up three, five, six years into the process, standing there looking at the site saying, "This isn't what I thought it was going to be."

It's all about that site preparation because, as soon as you call something pollinator habitat, people get this vision in their mind of what they think it's going to look like. It's usually the calendar in your office when you flip it to the month of July and that photo of this gorgeous flowering meadow. We can get there, but it doesn't happen overnight. How we prepare a site is just critically important.

That's also part of our innovation in our new technology that we refer to as next-gen conservation programs. I'll just expand also by saying that this next-gen thing that we have, the US Geological Survey did a study of all available pollinator habitat on the landscape; roadside, pastures, wildlife management areas, USDA programs that are designed for pollinator habitat, and Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund projects.

They had all of them in the same study, and looked at them. They found-- I'll give you three snapshots. One, we had twice as many floral resources as anything else available on the landscape, even the other programs designed for pollinators. Number 2, we had three times the amount of honeybee use and visits. Number 3 is we had eight times the number of native bee use and visits than anything else on the landscape. That says a lot to me.

That's something that we're really, if you go back again to the very first conversation, we can do this better. It's not rocket science. It doesn't have to be uber-expensive and we can do this and make a difference. I think that those results are really part of showing that we're hitting that mark.

Jeff: You touched on a great point in what you stated is that The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, the bee part is not just honeybee, it's all bees, and your study that you pointed out, illustrates it.

Pete: The rising tide floats all boats, as you said. It's the absolute example.

Becky: What does management of these acres look like in year 5 or year 10, now that you've been established?

Pete: Here's one thing that you can engrave in stone. There's nothing that we can plant and you walk away from it and it's always great habitat. That's not the case. Everything needs a little bit of management, and that management could be a combination of mowing, herbicide application, grazing, prescribed fire, those sorts of things. Every project is unique and different, and that's what we like to talk about, about how to plan your management.

That's part of-- in the application process, we find out what kind of management can you do in the future for not everybody is prescribed fire going to be an option. That informs how we design and build a project as well. It truly is one-on-one technical guidance along with the free seed that's given.

Becky: Zac, how are yours managed?

Zac: I have followed Pete and the staff biologist's recommendations, which, in the beginning, were all about site prep. I have to admit that a portion of mine, there were a couple of shortcuts taken, and so we've battled with that area, but for the areas that we followed the prescription, they turned out marvelous. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't even happen the first year. The first year, we had a lot of the annuals come up and they looked good at first, but then there were some weeds and we had to do some mowing.

Then I want to say, in about year 3, a lot of the native perennial plants really took hold and started to shine. That's when we got the more vibrant colors and the taller plants. We started to see less weed invasion and competition in the site. I think, in year 4, we were starting to see a little bit of Canadian thistle and some grasses moving in. Pete had advised that we burn the site and we did that in the fall and wish we could share pictures in this that there were tremendously beautiful results the following year.

Now I think that the site looks as good as it ever has and we're further into it than we're supposed to be looking this good, Pete. I think we're seven years in and it still looks amazing.

Pete: It's called karma.

Zac: I believe it is.

Jeff: Floral karma. Zac, if you want to send us a picture or two, and I'll make sure they get in the show notes, so folks, our listeners, can go to our website and take a look at the show notes and see what a healthy habitat looks like seven years down the line.

Pete: Just to add to a comment that Becky made earlier because she referenced that we use two seed mixtures, that's also part of our innovation. People might not be aware of that. Each project, if it's 6 acres, there's 3 acres in what we refer to as a honeybee mix, and 3 acres in what we call a monarch butterfly mix. The honeybee mix has the clovers and things like that, but there are two very different seed mixtures. One establishes very, very, very quickly. The second mixture, and it follows what Zac was saying—this is our saying—in year 1, it sleeps, in year 2, it creeps, and in year 3, it leaps. Doesn't mean there's not value in year 1 and 2, but that's when you have to very strategically be applying the management to control the weeds that will be in there and that sort of thing. Applying patience and management in year 3 when you get that leap, it's like, wow.

Jeff: We're coming up close to the end of our time. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would like to bring to our listeners' attention?

Becky: Let's talk solar.

Pete: Oh, that's a different podcast and I would love to be a part of it.

Becky: Oh, no, we'll bring it back.

Pete: Yes, please. Let's do. I want to make sure, and you asked about beekeepers and that, Becky, but I didn't really give a big enough thanks for groups like the Minnesota Honey Producers Association. We can't give away free seed and free one-on-one technical guidance without financial support. We're a nonprofit. It's really, really important and those beekeepers have really helped us out.

Let me give you what I think, to me, is a stark example of how we're growing and how much more support we need to keep doing what we're doing. Two years ago at this time, if you had asked me, I would've told you that, in our queue of how many applications do we have that we're working on, it would've been between 25 and 35 applications that are in there. We're working with these people and that thing. Last Monday on our staff call, I learned that that number was 623.

Becky: So many flowers, everybody, so many flowers. Potential for flowers.

Pete: The word is out there. We want to work with all of them. We want to do more. We need to do more. It's an absolutely great endeavor. We're happy to be working on it but we very, very much welcome anybody's support at any level. This is an election season, so people should be used to being asked for 20, 40, 100, whatever dollar contribution.

Jeff: Funny, I just heard the same thing from the local NPR station too. They're giving out their tote bags.

Pete: There you go. We have a program that's called A Gift that Grows, and that's where-- think about this. Thanks for mentioning that. We don't have a tote bag, but what we'll do, you have somebody that you want to give a memorial to, a birthday gift, an anniversary gift. Today is my wedding anniversary.

Becky: Happy anniversary.

Pete: You want to give a gift? Instead of giving my wife a bouquet of flowers that lasts five days, we make a contribution to The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund in this thing called Gifts that Grow. Then, in her honor, and you get a certificate to present to her, saying, "Here's the gift." She gets a field of wildflowers that will be there for a minimum of five years.

Jeff: Wow. We'll make sure we put that as a link in the show notes as well.

Pete: Say no more. You'll be a hero to your wife. I mentioned that it can be a memorial. Think about we've all experienced a loss somewhere in our life and you're at a funeral and there's flowers there, and at the end of it, the family's like, "What do we do with all these plants and flowers, and that sort of thing?" I now give a gift that grows for my friends that are no longer with us. Every single time the family says to me, "That is perfect. That is exactly what Bob would've loved. Thank you for that gift." I would encourage other people to think about giving a field of wildflowers in somebody's honor.

Jeff: I tell you what, Pete, you just inspired me, and because the last time you were on, you were with Kim, we'll make a donation in Kim's name.

Pete: Thank you. How appropriate is that?

Becky: That's so lovely.

Jeff: That's pretty cool.

Becky: If you think about what impact, even if all the beekeeping organizations listening to the podcast, if they decide to just include that link in their next newsletter so that other beekeepers can learn about it, it makes a big difference.

Pete: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, it does.

Jeff: Guys, it's been really good just barely touching the surface of what you do and the great work that you've been doing, and Pete, look forward to having you back to talk about the solar projects that you're working on. It sounds really good. That's been getting a lot of good press too all over the country. Let's delve into that a little bit more.

Pete: Thank you so much for the opportunity to chat about this. As you could tell, Zac and I aren't passionate about this at all. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Really enjoyed our conversation today.

Becky: I greatly appreciate you having this conversation, so thank you.

Zac: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to tell this story. This is something very near and dear to me. It's something that, for me personally, has been uplifting not only in my career but my personal life, knowing that there is a solution to what has been such a daunting and dismal change to the landscape. It doesn't take millions of acres. It just takes real dedication and engineering to make every acre the very best that it can be. We can see a lot of different species, but especially my honeybees do really well.

[music]

Jeff: This has been a fantastic series. Becky, I'm so glad you and the Minnesota Honey Producers Association thought of this idea.

Becky: After we had an epic habitat fundraiser that we actually were able to raise over $60,000 for The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, after the honey producers saw how much good we can do, they really got excited about spreading the word and making sure that we could get the message as far as the fact that the honeybees need help as far as habitat or forage, as we learned today, is concerned, and who the players are who can actually make a difference and get us to that next level of helping our bees. You are welcome, and we are happy to support a Habitat series.

Jeff: Yes, it's fantastic. I look forward to talking to Pete too down the road about the solar initiative that he was talking about. I literally saw an article and I can't remember now where I saw it. I think it was the New YorkTimes because that's the only written publication we get here at the house. Is that, in one of their-- I think the Sunday magazine or something, about the importance of these solar installations to both pollinators and for grazing animals. It is the place to be.

Becky: I'm actually moving my bees to two solar farms next spring, sorry, when I expand, because where I keep my bees, the farmer also does solar. He plants and manages the habitat. From what I hear, it's going to be lovely.

Jeff: Oh, very cool. Folks, when you get a chance, go out and check The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund. If you have an engagement coming up or an anniversary or memorial like I will be doing shortly after we're done recording, that is a great place for a long-lasting beneficial gift that will continue to give for years and years and years.

Well, that about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcast or wherever you download and stream the show.

Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the Reviews tab along the top of any webpage. We want to thank Betterbee and our regular longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books for their generous support. Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Beekeeping TodayPodcast listener, for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments on our website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:52:44] [END OF AUDIO]