Three years ago, Montoya started the Pollinator Advocates program. In that short time, she’s trained nearly 50 community members in-depth about the importance of native habitat for pollinators and reintroduced thousands of native plants to yards and parks around Boulder. 

“I am positive that [this led to] an empiric increase in the numbers of insects and hummingbirds in our neighborhoods,” she says. “We are currently working with entomologists on setting up surveys across the city.”

Montoya spent decades improving the well-being of people as a physician’s assistant, treating cancer and auto-immune diseases and supporting patient recovery with herbal remedies. But since retiring in 2015, she’s become dedicated to improving the well-being of “our Great Mother.” 

She first stumbled across a native bee house at the library in 2018 on a walk with her grandson. This prompted a research deep dive, learning from local experts and taking courses at the University of Colorado, and spiraled into community activism. 

“The more I read about these native bees and plants and ecosystems, the more I realized that the reason why pollinators were so in decline is because they lost habitat,” says Montoya. She looked around her own neighborhood—densely packed with houses and “dead sod.” An ecological graveyard.

Photography by Adrian Carper.

Native pollinators need the relationships they have with native plant species to survive, like how monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. We love songbirds, but they need healthy insect populations to thrive. Montoya points out that a pair of chickadees need 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise a clutch of young before they leave the nest. 

In 2019, Montoya started out by giving native plants (donated by Harlequin’s Gardens and Growing Gardens) to neighbors to encourage buy-in. She recruited volunteers to plant in “pocket parks,” small public spaces in densely populated neighborhoods, and would pass along what she’d learned about pollinators. Her Polish and Mexican Indigenous heritage helps her connect with people from diverse backgrounds, building a network of interested community members.

The city-sponsored free Pollinator Advocates (PA) program she launched in 2021 is now “bigger than I could have imagined,” she says. “Time and again, it really keeps me going that so many people are drawn to the work.” The PA program is application-based and open to adults within Boulder, with 20 people per cohort. Organizers try to choose applicants with a mix of backgrounds and experience, to ensure diversity within the group. 

Participants commit to attending a weekly two-hour lecture from June through August with local experts—including professors, researchers and conservationists—who teach about native pollinators and plants, and they spend roughly 15 hours volunteering to plant and maintain pollinator habitat in the city. In the end, graduating PAs receive $150 worth of native plants for their own yards from Harlequin’s Gardens. 

Montoya’s favorite moments are when she’s out with a group of new PAs or volunteers and a bee lands on a flower. In her experience, it’s like watching a baby being born. “You’re gonna think I’m exaggerating,” her face is lit up, joyful, “but everyone goes ‘Ah! Look! It’s a bee! It’s here! It’s working!’ So, there’s little tiny miracles that I never thought I’d get to witness happening over and over again.”

But not everything is miraculous. One of Monotoya’s biggest challenges is that people have major fears of insects. Even nature documentaries “show insects as being these weird, aggressive, pinchy, bitey monsters.” When going into communities to talk about pollinators, she starts with the less anxiety-inducing species: butterflies and hummingbirds. If the conversation is going well, she’ll pull up a picture of a native bee—from the millimeter-long Perdita minima to metallic green sweat bees or a lumbering bumble bee. Seeing these insects in less frightening ways can open people’s minds to the benefits and beauty of native pollinators.

Montoya sees her work as climate action and a way to bring life and biodiversity back to our environment. “It’s a chance to right a wrong as humans,” she explains.

Photography by Adrian Carper.

So, what can we all do to support native pollinators, especially farmers? Talk to your neighbors and advocate for pollinators, plus take these three actions. 

First, stop using chemical pesticides. “You’ll kill the very organisms both in the soil and flying around that you need,” says Montoya. She says that commercial pesticides contain toxins harmful to humans as well. She encourages people to opt for natural pest management options, such as creating a healthy ecosystem or killing invasive pests such as Japanese beetles by knocking them into a bucket of soapy water. For Montoya, the best pest management technique is creating a native habitat, as there are more beneficial insects that can prey on and outcompete harmful ones.

Second, plant regionally native plants around your garden or farm, being sure to have blooms across as much of the season as possible. “Plants that need the native soil don’t really need all the nutrients in a food garden bed,” she says, so she recommends 100 feet to 300 feet between your veggie beds and native plants so they all thrive. 

Third, leave some patches of bare soil—no mulch, no thick cover crop, no plastic—as the majority of native bee species nest in the ground. 

The post Meet the Woman Who Launched a Local Training Program to Save Native Bees appeared first on Modern Farmer.

According to Jaret Daniels, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, we no longer have the luxury of relying only on conservation lands to address biodiversity loss. Climate change, pollution, pesticides and habitat destruction are putting increasing pressure on pollinators, such as bees and butterflies. He says we need to look at nontraditional spaces as well, such as agricultural margins, utility corridors and roadsides. Although roads commonly fragment habitat for wildlife, pollinator programs, present in many states, flip the script and provide opportunities for conservation. 

Daniels is the lead of a new $155,000 grant from the Florida Department of Transportation that will plant 9,000 milkweed plants along Florida highways over the next three years to support monarch breeding habitat. Monarchs depend on diverse ecosystems, but they only lay their eggs on milkweed.

Monarchs are a “gateway bug” to improving habitat, says Daniels. Planting the roadsides for monarchs will also be good for insect pollinators in general. Beyond that, pollinators such as bees are key participants in agriculture, and we depend on them for our food. These roadside plantings aim to connect habitat, rather than fragment it. State Departments of Transportation (DOTs), often managing some of the most land in the state, are uniquely positioned to address this task.

“Even these fairly urbanized areas still harbor a lot of diversity,” says Daniels. “And if you connect those spaces, then it enhances it even more to provide connectivity between populations and movement.”

A milkweed plant grows along an FDOT roadway. (Photo by Jaret Daniels)

From beautification to conservation

Planting flowers along roadsides isn’t a new idea. Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification efforts in the 1960s spread beyond cities and to the highways, and many states have been planting flowers on roadways for years.

But some of these beautification efforts have taken up a second purpose—pollinator conservation. North Carolina began its Wildflower Program in 1985, and it now manages 1,500 acres of wildflowers along major North Carolina thoroughfares.

About 15 years ago, says Derek Smith, roadside management engineering supervisor for the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), discussion of pollinators entered the picture when a North Carolina State University scientist, Danesha Seth Carley, started studying the effects these plantings were having on pollinators. NCSU research confirmed that these roadside plantings drew in a higher number of bees and greater bee diversity.

The efforts then became intentional. The NCDOT planted gardens for monarchs at highway rest areas, welcome centers and wetland mitigation sites. Two of these welcome centers are certified monarch waystations on MonarchWatch.org.

An adult monarch. (Photo by Jaret Daniels)

Besides milkweed, NCDOT also plants a mix of perennial, annual and native plants. “Monarchs will nectar on all kinds of plants,” says Smith.

The decision to plant perennials and natives means that the NCDOT doesn’t need to go back every year to re-establish the plot. Additionally, it’s worked with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture to support farmers who want to grow flowers on their farm margins in support of pollinators.

“Transportation departments are one of the largest landowners in various states,” says Smith. “Why not take advantage of it if we can, and create habitat.”

More than milkweed

The milkweed movement is commonly associated with a way to help the monarch butterfly. In recent years, it’s become a popular way to support the species—since milkweed is the only type of plant on which monarchs will lay their eggs. 

However, landscape designer and author Benjamin Vogt cautions against leaning too much on milkweed as the silver bullet for monarch conservation. Adult monarchs need a diversity of plants on which to nectar.

“A more diverse habitat planting fosters a thriving ecosystem, one in which countless other interactions are occurring, which not only benefit monarchs but all sorts of other butterfly and insect and bug species,” wrote Vogt to Modern Farmer in an email. “Gardening for monarchs means gardening for everyone else.”

[RELATED: Meet the Milkweed Man on a Quest to Help Monarch Butterflies]

Michael McClanahan of the Tennessee Department of Transportation is very familiar with the public’s love for milkweed. In 2023, the TDOT launched a program called Project Milkweed—free mail-order milkweed seeds for people to plant in their gardens to support monarchs. It ran out of seeds pretty quickly, restocked and ran out again. All in all, it received 130,903 individual orders, sending out a total of 799,601 packets of seeds. 

“I think we were shocked,” says McClanahan. “It’s really shown us that people want to do the right thing. And that people are really passionate about trying to preserve their space and create these waystations for migrating pollinators.”

A meadow planted by TDOT at a highway interchange. (Photo by TDOT)

In Tennessee’s planting program, though, it goes beyond milkweed. It started a few years ago when NCDOT wanted to “up [its] game,” says McClanahan. It didn’t start with planting but with other pollinator-friendly practices on the roadsides. TDOT started mowing less. It began deploying fewer herbicides and changing up their herbicide mixes. 

“That’s really kind of the genesis of our Pollinator Habitat Program is we started looking at our internal practices,” says McClanahan.

The program now boasts 11 sites, including welcome centers and state parks. Here, people can find diverse native plants, trees, bushes and grasses—such as partridge pea, false sunflower, frost aster and more.

For some of the roadside planting, McClanahan says sometimes people expect to see manicured,  blooming gardens. But many of their plantings are focused on native diversity and won’t always be in full color. Habitat restoration goes beyond pretty blooms and improves the ecosystem as a whole. 

“I think when you tell people that they’re native [plants], they’re more receptive to what’s out there.”

Use the space you have. Vogt doesn’t think you can necessarily “restore habitat” for pollinators in your backyard, but you can create a little island of resources. “Every plant matters,” says Vogt. “Every native plant matters more.” And if that island can connect to other islands, pollinators will be better off for it. “The more habitat we have in all shapes and form[s] the better,” says Vogt. He has published a few helpful books on this subject, including A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future and Prairie Up.

Think local and make connections. “You can make simple steps in your own landscape to enhance and attract wildlife—plant native vegetation, reduce your lawn a little bit, diversify your landscape,” says Daniels. “And then as you’re going in and around your community, look at other spaces that have potential.” This could mean connecting with DOT officials, local government or even your homeowner’s association.

Use your resources if able. Smith says North Carolina’s Wildflower Program is not funded through tax dollars but through the purchase of personalized license plates. If you live in North Carolina, that’s a good way to support the continuance of the program. Other states have similar programs, such as Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania.  

Go beyond planting. Pollinators experience pressures from pollution, chemical pesticides/herbicides and climate change. Addressing these issues in your community through advocacy or policy is an important way to support pollinators. 

Learn more. There are many resources online for learning more about pollinator health and how to support them. Here are a few:

• Florida Wildflower Foundation.“They also have wildflower resolution templates on their website to work with local communities to try to increase planting along roadways or get areas designated as wildflower areas where mowing is reduced during spring bloom,” says Daniels.
• The Xerces Society. You can take part in nationwide movements for pollinators such as No Mow May.
• Tennessee DOT has a short series of educational videos online led by “Polli, the Bee from Tennessee.”
• Remember that there are some things that might seem helpful for pollinators but actually aren’t. Read about that here.

The post Pollinator Habitat is Falling to the Side of the Road—in a Good Way appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As her area was on lockdown during the pandemic, Bigelow gravitated towards an old hobby from her childhood: playing The Sims computer game. Remembering that it used to take her hours to complete, she thought it was a good way to pass the empty hours. One of the tasks in The Sims Four is keeping a virtual bee box. This got Bigelow interested in real-world beekeeping, leading her to take an online beekeeping course. 

The class got her thinking about how, as a Black person, she might have to be more cautious in certain situations than her non-Black counterparts and how some parts of beekeeping were challenging in ways some might not have considered. 

While there are no current numbers on how many African American beekeepers exist in the United States, the history of Black Americans farming, and even beekeeping, runs deep. There are letters from George Washington indicating that people he enslaved kept hives to provide Mount Vernon with honey. And at one time, all students at the historic Black college Tuskeegee University in Alabama were required to take beekeeping classes. 

But today, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, less than one percent of farmers identify as African American. Compare the 45,000 Black farmers today to the almost 950,000 that existed 100 years ago in the United States. This decline also includes a decrease in rural land owned by African Americans, which profoundly impacts access to beekeeping. 

Living in a condo in Washington, D.C., Bigelow doesn’t have access to her own land and worked with the DC Beekeepers Alliance, which connects apiarists in the city with those willing to host a hive on their private property. But as Bigelow contemplated this, other thoughts came to mind. 

“I found myself … asking myself questions that I knew no one else in the class was having to ask, or at least my non-Black counterparts,” she says. “As somebody who wasn’t attached to an organization or did not have my own backyard to be able to put a hive, I found myself struggling and asking myself questions about where did I feel safe. Because at that point it was early 2021. So, my mind was still very much on a lot of the conversations that [had] been happening, especially in the summer of 2020.”

As Bigelow thought about beekeeping, she realized that her safety as an African American could be jeopardized as she went onto other people’s properties to tend her hives. Her mind kept going back to other Black Americans in the news who had done perfectly legal things in public but still had the police called on them. 

“It made me uncomfortable to actually be in a public space at that point and to feel safe,” says Bigelow. “If I go on someone’s private property, my assumption was that most of the people who would be willing to host would probably not look like me. Then there’s also the conversation of if I’ll be safe going into someone’s private property, with permission, but nervous if their neighbors would try to call the cops.”  

The lack of land and the decline of African American farmers also pose another issue: finding mentors who can guide others through Black beekeepers’ unique challenges. Mentoring in the beekeeping community is very important because beekeeping is like farming, says Bigelow. It’s not an exact science and novices can’t learn everything from a book. There’s a lot of hands-on experience that needs to take place. Having someone to walk a new beekeeper through issues is imperative to the learning process. 

Bigelow discovered one such issue in her training while using a smoker, an essential tool used to calm agitated bees. 

“As I started beekeeping, I realized that using a smoker, which is a common practice of beekeeping, isn’t great for a person who can’t wash their hair every time they use one,” she says, referring to the fact that African American hair tends to be dry and isn’t shampooed daily to help reduce breakage. “And so, I found myself encountering beekeeping in a way that very much, you know, dealt with my lived experience as a Black woman, whether that comes to my literal body or my fears or concerns for the safety of my body.”

A smoker is used to calm agitated bees. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Beekeeping While Black is Bigelow’s way of creating a community while also helping provide mentorship and inspiration to African Americans considering taking up this unique skill. 

Currently, the website houses The Honey Book, a directory of Black beekeepers in the United States. While it’s not a comprehensive list, Bigelow happily adds new beekeepers who contact her via the website or the site’s Instagram account. Future plans include a mentor matching program, along with hopefully one day taking up research and policy goals that influence beekeeping and the avenues associated with it.

Since Bigelow doesn’t currently have access to additional land, she can only maintain one hive. But that, or the fact that she has a full-time job outside of beekeeping, doesn’t deter her from supporting others. 

“What I want people to know about Beekeeping While Black is that this is a space to create community. It’s a place where Black beekeepers can get the support that they need and to be able to feel seen,” she says. “I want it to be a place where we can have the conversations that many of us feel like we don’t get to have.”

As a relatively new beekeeper, Bigelow says she still has a lot to learn from others. “I see it as a journey of being able to [provide] resources to people to the best of my ability, but . . . also being able to bring beekeepers together so that we can learn and co-create together.”

“It’s a place where Black beekeepers can get the support that they need and to be able to feel seen.” (Photo courtesy Karyn Bigelow)

Bigelow’s background also helped enhance her view of how diversity can bring a new light to an age-old craft. 

“I think [diversity in beekeeping] is also really important because we need to move towards a food system that is more sustainable. And I can say anecdotally I find that Black and brown beekeepers tend to have more sustainable practices. So, I think it’s important. I really feel like some education can be had where farmers from different backgrounds are able to learn from each other, and that includes with beekeeping.”

Bigelow hopes she’s created an online place for Black people to find content and community with others who also have a passion for keeping bees. While she knows that in-person mentorship is important, she believes that having an online support system is important, too. As Bigelow continues developing the website (there are hopes for an incubator program one day), she knows that the art of beekeeping can help people in many ways. 

“I have learned so much about life watching the bees. And one of those things that I’ve learned is about the beauty and community when the community is focused on the same mission. No one bee is more important than the other or their survival. I think that’s a beautiful showing of what a community could look like when it comes together for a common purpose.”

The post Meet the Urban Apiarist Creating Community for Black Beekeepers appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Wasps are an incredibly diverse species, spanning from yellowjackets to velvet ants (despite the name, they are wasps), which provide countless ecological services—including protection for agriculture via pest prevention and pollination. As wasps are predators, they hunt prey, such as flies, caterpillars and spiders. Wasps, both the ones that live and work together (social wasps) and the ones that live and work on their own (solitary wasps) are constantly working in ways that benefit the environment and humanity as a whole, maintaining an important ecological balance.

Solitary wasps, as they specialize on one specific organism, are being introduced to farms as a method of biological pest control and to great success. Some states have begun to integrate wasps into their farming procedures and recommendations. In Oregon, for example, a parasitic wasp that preys upon a highly damaging fruit fly has been released by Oregon State University to assist with control of the pest, protecting one of Oregon’s most profitable crops, blueberries, which brings in approximately $183 million per year.

Wasps … are constantly working in ways that benefit the environment and humanity as a whole, maintaining an important ecological balance.

Parasitic wasps, a division of solitary wasps, have specific insects they parasitize, including notorious pests such as tomato worms and aphids. The wasps lay their eggs inside the host, often paralyzing them with venom and viruses. Their eggs will grow and eventually hatch out of the host, killing it. Social wasps such as hornets, paper wasps and yellowjackets also provide pest control on a large scale. In the United Kingdom, social wasps were estimated to capture 14 million kilograms (30,864,717 pounds) of prey. Wasps of all species and sizes play a vital and often unrecognized role in the ecosystem.

About 75 percent of the crops we grow depend to some extent on pollination. And wasps, like bees, are pollinators. While their most commonly recognized pollination role lies in commercial fig production and orchid pollination, many other wasp species are also pollinators. Pollen wasps, which feed only on nectar and pollen, are key pollinators in their range around the world. Social wasps are generalist pollinators, bringing pollen with them as they fly from flower to flower. In certain cases, both yellowjackets and paper wasps have been found to outperform honey bees in pollen transfers. Other solitary wasps, such as the European beewolf and hairy flower wasp, have more hair than a typical wasp, transferring a lot of pollen between various plants. 

Wasps, like bees, are pollinators. (Photo courtesy of Anna Lovat)

And yet, despite all this, they aren’t exactly popular creatures, and sometimes advocating for them seems like yelling into a void. (Well, a void that likes to yell back.) Most are confused as to why a hated insect could be loved, especially by a teen, and a girl at that. When this happens, I like to go back to the beginning. 

You see, my epic love story—the one we all have, the one that fundamentally changes our lives, the one that shifts how we see the world—began out of spite. In my love story, there’s no boy meets girl or girl meets girl. Instead, I met a wasp.

In the summer of 2021, I was 15 years old and had secured a paid internship at the University of Minnesota’s bee lab. We’d meet via Zoom, discuss pollinators and learn about the natural world around us. I saw the word “paid” and was immediately on board. It seemed like an easy way to spend a summer and, best of all, I was going to make some money out of it. 

Once a week, we got together and learned about pollinators and the threats they face to their health. We spent evenings learning about different types of grass and soil, roadside pollination and the dependence of humans on the often unnoticed work of insects. Throughout the summer, wasps had been mentioned sporadically, as they are important pollinators but not nearly as well known as bees. Like clockwork, every time wasps were brought up, several of the boys in my group would describe their hatred of wasps, calling them “the devil’s spawn,” “nature’s mistake” and so on. Perhaps I had heard myself described similarly one too many times because I was filled with peevish determination to prove those boys wrong—to find something within wasps that was beneficial, that would make people care. 

The only problem was that I didn’t know anything about wasps. I’d seen a couple of them but from a safe distance. I began to furiously devote myself to learning everything I could about wasps. I read Wikipedia articles, research papers, kids’ books, biology textbooks, books on the classifications of Hymenoptera—anything and everything I could get my hands on, which turned out to be not much. Insects are a group with poor publicity and public response, and within that, most of the research and funding is given to the prettier insects. Wasps, known for their warning colors and stings, don’t quite fit that bill.

“When I say I love wasps, I truly do mean wasps.” (Photo courtesy of Anna Lovat)

The day I fell in love for the first time is the same day to which I credit my first kiss. Sitting on my porch in the sticky Minnesota summer, I was reading a children’s book about frightening insects. Absorbed in the illustrations of paper wasps, I at first did not notice the one that alighted upon my palm. She began to crawl across my hands and then up my arm and, gradually, as I, at first terrified, began to calm, she alighted on my face and began to explore, nibbling my lips with her mouth. It is hard to explain what I felt in those moments—certainly fear but also a keen sense of wonder. Here was this magnificent creature, vastly misunderstood and greatly feared, and yet she had been gentle with me. How could I look at her and not love her? 

When I first began talking to people about wasps, I found myself frequently alone. I was standing on my soapbox and trying to convince people that what they thought they knew was wrong. It didn’t help that I was a woman, and thus, every time I spoke, I was challenged. Online, where I tried my best to keep my comments polite and informative, I was called names, and once, memorably, I was told I’d be “lit on fire, along with all the wasp nests.” I was dismayed. You see, I had (perhaps naively) believed that when I showed up (so excited!) ready to teach and learn along with others, I would be welcomed with open arms. And for a long time, I didn’t find that. Yet, my love for wasps persisted. 

Throughout the years since, where I have found hatred thrown in my face, I have also experienced the kindness of strangers. I have taught children how to hold wasps and bees alike, in some small way showing them the power of questioning what you are taught. None of them have been stung. I have met older women who watched me leaning into bushes, often holding a net and asking me what in the world I was doing. 

I have learned to look for people who, like me, have been pushed to the side for their oddities and those who have been boxed into categories simply because of how they were born. 

Wasps have taught me to open my heart, and I am a better person for it.

Born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Anna (@annalouise014) spends her days poking various insects and doing her math homework. She is also the designated spider relocator of her family.

The post In Defense of Wasps  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Male squash bees are ready at first light to greet females as they emerge from their shallow nests in the soil and start the day’s work of pollinating plants in the squash family: cucumbers, pumpkins and melons. Squash bees are working hard for hours before honey bees may join them in the fields. And squash bees are well adapted to pollinating their preferred plants.

“Squash flowers produce large, spiny, starchy pollen grains,” says Cane. “Honey bees actively rub and discard the sticky squash pollen off their bodies. Frequently, squash is blooming when corn is tasseling and, as honey bees prefer corn pollen, they tend to spend their time with the corn. But squash bees aren’t distracted by other plants: They’re reliable squash pollinators.” 

Honey bees arrived in North America in the 17th century, carried by European colonists. They’re actively managed in hives and are considered domestic livestock. Where I live in North Carolina, growers with large cucumber and squash farms rent honey bees at a cost of $100 or more per hive and require 1-2 hives per acre during each season. But why would a farmer hire expensive pollination services when the squash bees work for free?

For years, the advice farmers received was similar to that given in this North Carolina extension apiculturalist bulletin: “Only honey bees are available in adequate numbers to ensure good cucumber fruit set.” Lately, though, the state has tried to increase awareness about the capabilities of wild, native bees to pollinate North Carolina’s crops. Cane told me that for pollinating crops such as squashes, gourds and pumpkins, “It’s clear that native bees are the best.” Others who study squash pollination concur. But many farmers are not aware of native bees. Native bees don’t always resemble honey bees and vary in size, so farmers may not know if they have other pollination options nearby.

Squash bees in a pumpkin flower. (Photo: Jacques M. LeTendre)

Save The Honey Bee! North Carolina has an option to buy a specialty license plate to publicize the plight of the honey bee. Federal dollars, through the US Department of Agriculture, support beekeepers with insurance, disaster assistance, diagnostic testing, loans and grants. But are honey bees in danger or are we misdirecting our resources towards the wrong bee?

I’m a veterinarian with a honey bee-exclusive practice and I see the challenges my clients face to keep their colonies alive. It’s not just a local phenomenon. Recently, the Bee Informed Partnership reported that an estimated 50 percent of honey bee colonies died between the summers of 2022 and 2023, as reported by those beekeepers across the mainland US who completed the Bee Informed Partnership’s annual survey.

While those annual losses may seem extreme, beekeepers can create new colonies by buying new queens through the mail, by splitting vigorous hives ready to swarm and by moving bees among hives to strengthen and save weak colonies. With intensive management, honey bee colony numbers have remained relatively stable in the US over the last few decades and have even been observed to rise periodically with the price of honey. 

Successful beekeeping requires attention and a regular time commitment for colony management, feeding and parasite control. And for those new to the craft and science of beekeeping, some find themselves unable to keep their hives going over the years. Is there an alternative to the expense or time investment in honey bee pollination for a farmer growing pollinator-dependent crops?

It’s clear that crop yields are higher with better pollination. Wild, native bees served the plants and crops of North America for millennia and are still the foundation of pollination services in all but the largest farms today. Depending on the size of the operation and the nature of land use on and around the farm, people may have the option of relying upon native bees for pollination. 

Many farms already benefit from wild, native bee pollination. Cranberry yields are higher when native bees are at work. The southeastern blueberry bee is the most efficient pollinator of blueberries in the southern United States. Native bee pollinators are reported to produce larger strawberries than honey bees. But native bee abundance is heavily influenced by the availability of adequate habitat such as areas of undisturbed ground, as most native bees nest in the ground. They need space where pesticide use is low enough that they can successfully reproduce and become (or remain) locally established.

A bumblebee visits a thistle flower. (Photo: Shutterstock)

How does one determine if there are existing native bees on a farm? It can be a challenge for busy people to learn how to recognize them. People can start to identify native bees by observing the weather conditions and time of day. Honey bees favor the warmest hours midday, while native bees start their work earlier. Native bees may be more likely to be observed working alone during breezy, cooler days and days with light rain. 

With support and monitoring, it may be possible to downsize the number of honey bee pollinators over time until native populations are sufficient for a farms’ pollination needs. By augmenting existing flowering plants and space for bee habitat, more native bees can be attracted into an area.

All bees are enduring unprecedented challenges: extreme weather, pests and disease, habitat and flower losses and potent, water-soluble insecticides that contaminate plants, soil and water far from where they’re applied. Regardless of how farm pollination is managed, a diversity of native flowering plants that bloom over the entire growing season supports pollinators and other beneficial insects that will aid in crop pest control. Large perennial plantings among crop areas provide sections of undisturbed soil and are ideal to maximize the numbers of native pollinators who will survive and become established on site. 

Where native bees are abundant and present, it’s easy to overlook their contributions. I’ve seen this in my own fruit orchard. I took my high pollination rates for granted and resented the chore of thinning fruit during late spring each year. When my native pollinators disappeared due to local contamination, I was shocked during the springs that followed to see fruit trees flower yet remain barren. 

Cane, the research entomologist, told me a similar story on a much larger scale. He’d been working with a student among pumpkin growers in the Texas Panhandle who enjoyed high yields each year from their local squash bees. “One year, they allowed aerial spraying of insecticide on their blooming fields and after that complained of poor crop yields. The once plentiful squash bees were gone,” he says. 

Depending upon where a farm is located and the specific pollination needs, a farmer may be able to partner with the native pollinators that already inhabit the area. If honey production is a goal or if supplemental honey bee pollination is needed, pesticide-free native flowering plants, trees and shrubs will support both honey bees and wild, native insect pollinators of all stripes.

Elizabeth D. Hilborn, DVM is a honey bee specialist veterinarian and author of: Restoring Eden: Unearthing the Agribusiness Secret That Poisoned My Farming Community.

The post Are We Backing the Wrong Bee? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But in 2022, the data was stark: Researchers warned of severe grasshopper infestations in southern Alberta and along the Saskatchewan border. But without much-needed rain, there was very little that could have been done to hold back the hungry hordes.

Dan Johnson is a professor of environmental science at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. “Grasshoppers are very responsive to weather,” he says.

A male clearwing grasshopper. Photography courtesy of Dan Johnson.

Females lay their eggs in late summer, sometimes as many as eight pods of between 10 and 90 eggs each. If it’s a wet fall, fungi and bacteria can infect the eggs, limiting their survival rates. If it’s a warm spring, the eggs will hatch early, and the nymphs can develop quickly. In southeastern Alberta, three years of warm springs and long dry summer and fall months have created the perfect conditions for egg laying and population growth.

“The irony,” says Johnson, “is that there are about 80 common species of grasshoppers and only a handful are bad guys. The rest are beneficial to the ecosystem, devouring invasive weeds and providing food for prairie birds like the endangered burrowing owl. In Alberta, it’s the clear-winged and two-striped grasshoppers that are causing all the damage.”

Just 10 of these “bad guys” per square metre can consume between 16 percent and  60 percent of available vegetation. Their meals of choice are: barley, oats, corn, soy, wheat, rye and alfalfa, the mainstay commercial crops of prairie farmers. 

Unfortunately, prevention isn’t as easy as spraying the larvae with pesticides. “Spraying has to be targeted, and unless you know the difference between the larva of the bad versus good grasshopper, which many people don’t, spraying can be ineffective,” says Johnson. Then, once the insects start eating, it’s too late to fight back. “Insecticides can deter some of them, but when the numbers are as high as they are now, it’s pretty much impossible to eradicate them all.” 

Even if a farmer does spray, there’s often a wait time between the application of a chemical pesticide and when it’s safe to harvest a crop. This means farms have to keep the crop alive and use up precious water resources in an already water-restricted environment.

Crops devoured by grasshoppers. Photography courtesy of Dan Johnson.

Stewart Wells is a  third-generation farmer and owner of Penny Lane Organic Farms in Swift Current, SK. The farm’s organic certification means he is unable to use synthetic pesticides, so he instead relies on natural controls for his wheat, lentils, peas, alfalfa, mustard and coriander. While most of what he’s growing are traditional cash crops, the coriander isn’t for commercial sale. It’s for the grasshoppers. “They don’t like the smell and will avoid areas where it’s planted,” he says. Does it work? “Moderately.” Unfortunately, there aren’t many other proven methods to use. Wells could try to seed his crops early, so they can be harvested before the nymphs mature into eating machines. But that’s tricky. Farmers need warm weather to seed, and the warmer it gets, the faster the nymphs grow.

It all adds up to a smorgasbord for the hungry insects.  

Justine Comeau is an agricultural fieldman for southeastern Alberta’s Special Areas Board. An agency of the Government of Alberta, the board acts as a rural municipal service and, during a crisis, provides support to residents of the region. “Many of us remember the drought of the early 2000s and how grasshoppers ate the siding off houses. They were everywhere—even roads and highways had to be closed. This year is almost as bad,” she says.  

Across North America, farmers and ranchers are telling similar stories. In 2022, Oregon had an estimated 5.3 million acres of farm and ranchland infested by destructive grasshoppers. In some places, the average density was estimated at 73 grasshoppers per square yard. The United States Department of Agriculture sets a threshold of 15 to 20 nymphs or 8 to 10 adults per square yard before economic damage occurs.

“The financial impact of Alberta’s 2023 grasshopper infestation will vary from zero to 100 percent loss, depending on the area,” says Comeau. “There are pockets where there are none and, in other areas, 100 per square metre.

“For many livestock producers, the few grazing areas left that haven’t dried up because of lack of water have now been eaten by the grasshoppers,” says Comeau. The situation has become so serious that ranchers are having to destock herds.” It will take years for the pastures and perennial forages to recover, and that’s only if conditions improve. In the meantime, the costs and damages keep adding up. The effects of the 2001-2002 drought and all its combined losses, including grasshopper damage, cost the Canadian economy $5.8 billion.

An immature clearwing grasshopper. Photography courtesy of Dan Johnson.

The effects of this drought could be even more far-reaching. Alberta exports seven million tons of wheat each year to 70 countries around the world. With supplies of wheat already hampered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a blow like this could put another dent in an already dwindling supply.

In July, the Special Areas Board declared an agricultural disaster in southeastern Alberta, in hopes of making it easier for producers to get financial help from the province and access crop insurance claims. It will help, but it won’t solve the overall problem. If the hoped-for rains come and the drought abates, it won’t be the last time farmers and ranchers will have to deal with apocalyptic hordes of grasshoppers. According to the Government of Alberta’s climate change website, elongated periods of hot and dry weather are predicted to become more frequent in the province and to last longer because of climate change. 

Along with the heat and arid conditions, there will be grasshoppers.

The post Hungry and Seemingly Unstoppable: Grasshoppers Invade Canada’s Prairies appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Not native to the United States, the Japanese beetle was first detected on the East Coast in the early 1900s, and it began spreading across the country. The beetle has an appetite for more than 300 types of plants, including agricultural staples such as corn, hops, asparagus, cherries and more. The beetles eat plant leaves between the veins, leaving a cobweb-patterned mess behind. As of 2015, it was estimated that the US was spending more than $460 million annually to manage this pest.

Most states east of the Mississippi River have these beetles, and there have been infestations in some western states. A recent Washington State University study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology modeled the potential spread of the beetle across Washington state and found that, within two decades, if nothing is done to inhibit the beetle, it could be causing problems in all corners of Washington. The beetle’s first sighting in Washington was in the southern town of Sunnyside in 2020. Subsequently, the Washington State Department of Agriculture caught more than 20,000 beetles in the area.

Map of Japanese beetle distribution in the United States as of 2018, depicting established populations. (Map courtesy of USDA)

Gengping Zhu, research assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at WSU and lead author of the study, says that this research can inform people about where they are likely to see the beetle, hopefully enabling interventions to take place.

Both official management plans and public engagement can help curtail the progress of the beetle. States such as Oregon and California have had repeated infestations, but they have effectively prevented full-on establishment through swift management action.

Interventions can include things such as localized quarantines—making sure yard waste and other soils don’t travel to outside areas. At the federal level, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service utilizes a nationwide quarantine, specifically designed to prevent the spread of the beetle from eastern states to western states through air travel.

Many states have reporting forms online, where people can document sightings of the beetle. In parts of the country where the beetles are already pervasive, other innovative solutions are taking off, such as this 4-H project that turned into a beetle-busting business.

Stopping the spread of the beetle is preferable and more economically efficient than trying to address it after it has taken over, says Zhu. Adult beetles are easier to spot, but it’s even better to find them before the beetles can get to adulthood. “That’s the perfect window to control this beetle, but it’s harder to detect the eggs,” says Zhu.

The spread of the beetle is often attributable to human activity. Humans unknowingly transport beetles or their eggs/larvae through soil, potted plants, yard waste or other debris. 

That’s why engaging and educating the public about the spread of non-native species can make a difference, no matter where you live. Zhu says public involvement has been hugely helpful thus far and will continue to be critical for the successful management of this species.

The post Swift Intervention By Western States Is Keeping a Devastating Beetle at Bay appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Bushey and his wife, Angela Faeth, moved to Peaks Island more than 20 years ago. From their home, they run a map company that focuses on outdoor activities and documenting trails. As soon as he joined the small community, Bushey became the de facto trail guru for the many paths covering the island’s 750 acres in Casco Bay. In managing the trails, Bushey found himself focusing on the trees and bushes that grew alongside as much as the paths themselves. Peaks Island, along with the rest of the state, struggles with invasive bittersweet, honeysuckle and Norwegian Spruce. 

That was the beginning of Bushey’s fascination with native and invasive plant species in Maine. He studied how they grew and ways to disrupt the growth cycle of the invasive plants to allow native species to thrive again. Then one day, he watched a documentary on the migration of the monarch butterfly.

At first, he did not connect the needs of monarch butterflies and their 2,500-mile migration to his work on Peaks Island. The monarchs’ travel takes them from the northern US and Canada to their breeding grounds in Mexico, and the trip spans generations of butterflies. They rely exclusively on milkweed plants to sustain their migration and feed each generation of monarch caterpillars. There are 73 varieties of milkweed growing in the United States, more than 30 of which are hosts for the monarch butterfly and its caterpillars. It contains a chemical compound called cardenolide, which is toxic to most would-be predators. This provides the caterpillars safety from being eaten, and it remains in the bodies of butterflies after they transform.

A monarch caterpillar (left) and butterfly (right). (Photos courtesy of Steve Bushey)

The population of monarch butterflies has declined by more than 90 percent since the 1990s. This is partially due to logging in their overwintering grounds in Mexico and severe weather during their migration. But studies suggest that a downturn in the nation’s milkweed supply has been the leading cause of the dramatic decline in the monarch butterfly population.

The toxin of the milkweed makes the plant incompatible with fields hosting grazing cattle or intended for hay, and milkweed is renowned for aggressive growth that chokes out field grasses. This makes it a natural enemy of many farmers, who deploy herbicide sprays to eradicate the plant. 

Fascinated by monarchs, Bushey thought about going to Mexico to see the butterflies in their breeding grounds. Then he realized he could help them on their journey from his backyard in Maine. “I flipped it around, and I thought it has to be a terrible journey trying to work your way down the East Coast through all those urban areas.”

“I had a lot of conversations with people on the island,” says Bushey. “I became an advocate for the bees and the butterflies. I became an advocate for encouraging people not to pull up the milkweed and to plant native flowers.”

Bushey was immediately impressed with the resilience of the milkweed plant. “Milkweed is an aggressive native grower,” he says, admiring how it can appear in disturbed areas of soil and how one seed can give rise to a plant that, through rhizomes, spreads into an entire cluster.

With his experience in mapmaking, Bushey recognized that he could help the monarch butterflies from home through propagation of the milkweed plant. He started to track where milkweed was growing on Peaks Island. “On my morning walks, I began mapping the locations of all the milkweed patches I could find,” he says. “I spent three or four weeks doing these long walks, poking around corners and talking to people in their yards.” Using GPS mapping technology, Bushey came up with more than 60 locations of milkweed patches on the island. And he noticed something interesting: “There were not many wild locations where milkweed was growing. Most locations were in gardens.”

Steve Bushey with a milkweed plant. (Photo: Sarah Bryant)

Bushey was determined to expand the milkweed options for weary butterflies, and so as the monarchs began their fall migration and the milkweed went to seed, he turned from mapmaking to seed saving.

“People would pick their milkweed pods and hand them to me in brown paper bags,” he says. “I had one woman stop me in the middle of the street to hand me a bag from her car window into mine—it probably looked like a drug deal, but I was just receiving pods.” Bushey ended up receiving hundreds of pods.

Milkweed seeds are dried and stratified within their pods in the natural temperatures of a Maine winter, which helps the vitality of the seed. The seeds take five to six weeks to dry, and they can be laid out on screens or strung between rafters in a barn or shed, leaving plenty of room for air flow around the pods and allowing for the temperatures to drop naturally. Eventually, the pods begin to crack open, releasing their seeds. At this point, the seeds can be removed from their “parachutes”—the soft white fluff that allows them to blow and spread on the wind. 

Bushey sees seed pod gathering as an opportunity to foster community and intergenerational connection. “You can go outdoors and watch milkweed grow,” he says. “Watch the caterpillars, then the chrysalis, and at some point the butterfly comes out, and then you can start collecting the seed pods. Keep it within your community—so learn where to find the seeds, talk with people, get people to give you seed pods.” After the seeds are collected, the fun starts. “You can have seed parties, which can be messy but are great fun for kids. Then you can all make packages. It’s a lot of handwork—you can’t make money at this, but it builds friendships and a bond between the older generation and the youngest.” 

Milkweed plants (left) and Bushey’s seed packets. (Photos courtesy of Steve Bushey)

Bushey did not just dry, store and spread seeds for himself. To encourage milkweed growth across Peaks Island and the state of Maine, he started selling packets of milkweed seed. He took homemade seed packages to his local garden center where they set a display up at the register, and he shared the packets with anyone interested in growing milkweed. Before long, many of the gardeners of Peaks Island had started milkweed in their seedling trays.

For residents of New England, Bushey is happy to share milkweed seeds for pollinator gardens. Just reach out through the email contact at MapAdventures.com, he says, and he’ll put a packet of seeds in the mail for you. He prefers to keep his seed packages within New England so as not to introduce common milkweed to areas where it is not native, and he recommends researching on which variety native of milkweed monarchs feed in other regions.

Now the milkweed man of Peaks Island, Steve Bushey’s vision for the life-giving weed goes much further than Casco Bay. He imagines a world where milkweed is no longer seen as a weed but as a favored flower and connection point between generations of gardeners and seed collectors. 

“The monarchs’ journey is a multi-generational journey,” he says. “They die along the way and they have to lay their eggs and hatch butterflies, and it’s the next generation that makes it to Mexico. Imagine three generations of humanity sitting around a table talking, helping another species on their multi-generational trip.”

The post Meet the Milkweed Man on a Quest to Help Monarch Butterflies appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Roman had recently entered the foster care system and found herself drifting away from things she once loved, such as spending time outside. She recalls thinking, “You seriously want me to be around bees? Definitely not.”

With no prior pollinator experience, Roman was apprehensive. “I knew they stung and to get away from them if they’re close to you.” But by her fifth week in the program, Roman had warmed up to the bees, finding them therapeutic. 

“The sound of the bees is really relaxing,” says Roman. “It’s calming.”

New students don’t get into a bee suit for weeks. First, they work on social and emotional skills. (Photo: Grey Kenna)

Started by clinical social worker Sarah Taylor in 2018, the Huneebee Project is a therapeutic job skills training program that has graduated 25 cohorts, including Roman, from the 15-week program over the past five years. It’s also installed roughly 30 honey bee colonies across seven sites in the greater New Haven area, planted pollinator-friendly garden plots and launched an online marketplace that sells honey made from the hives, candles and a curated selection of other artisan products.

Participants range in age from 15 to 23, and the project prioritizes enrolling children and young adults with past or present child protective and foster care involvement.  

Taylor had long dreamed of creating a nonprofit for youth who are aging out of the foster care system. But it wasn’t until she took time for herself that she realized the therapeutic potential of beekeeping. Burnt out and disheartened with the foster care and child protective services systems, Taylor started keeping her own bees while working and attending a fellowship program in New Haven. 

“After a day of work, the only place I wanted to be was with my bees,” says Taylor. “It became a meditative practice for me. They’re their own form of therapy.”

The Huneebee Project became Taylor’s opportunity to combine her love of beekeeping with her professional background. 

The students are responsible for about 30 hives, although they are working on expanding to 50 hives by the end of summer 2023 across seven official garden sites in New Haven neighborhoods where the youth live. They also now have community hive checks where locals can join in checking on and learning about bees. It’s one more place to create a network and sense of community for the teens and the bees.

“It was really important to have the gardens where youth live so they would be accessible and create spaces where they can have a sense of ownership,” says Taylor.  

Students are responsible for taking care of 30 bee hives throughout the greater New Haven area. (Photo: Grey Kenna)

Over the years, the programming has evolved as participating youth have given feedback. The program runs each summer and is purposefully small, with about six students taking part. The students must attend at least 75 percent of the workshops to graduate and are matched with a mentor who provides encouragement throughout the program and helps with practicalities such as transportation and breakfast.

“These are kids that are often not going to school or are struggling to get out of bed or are extremely socially anxious. The mentors encourage them, they help with transportation and even get them something to eat. The intensive individual attention is so important,” says Taylor.

Students don’t even get into a bee suit for the first weeks; instead, according to Taylor, they spend time forming relationships, understanding their feelings and their body’s responses to emotions, such as fear, and identifying what they need to regain a sense of control. 

“We have these 15-, 16-year-olds who are used to pretending to be tough, but it’s hard to pretend to be tough around the bees, and it allows for more authentic conversations around fear,” says Taylor. “When someone with a trauma history has that fear response activated but can regain a sense of control, I believe that is healing.”

Since starting the project, Taylor has watched students heal, graduate with professional skills they take with them to college or new jobs and blossom.

For Alex Guzman, who graduated from the program in 2019 and continues to work at the Huneebee Project as junior bee instructor while attending college, the experience helped teach her skills she continues to use today.

“I’ve learned how to socialize in a more professional setting, and I’ve also gathered a lot more patience,” says Guzman. “I have been handling my mental health, learning when to set a boundary or take a break when I need to and take a breather.”

After participating in the program, Maria Roman hopes to keep her own bees one day. (Photo: Grey Kenna)

They’re skills she’s learned from interacting with others in the program and the bees themselves. 

“You have to be really patient when you approach bees and to take your time,” says Guzman, “kind of like when you’re dealing with any living thing. Everything I’ve been doing with the bees has contributed to developing those [socialization and patience] skills.”

Students also learn practical office skills, such as using a printer or a coffee maker, that are easy to take for granted but intimidating if you’ve never used  them.

“I look at myself now and, sometimes, I feel like I’m ready to be a boss,” says Roman, who adds that she would someday like to have her own house with bees that she could take care of and eventually, if she has children, teach her kids about.

The post For These Teens, a Unique Beekeeping Program Teaches About Much More Than Honey appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The caterpillars do not just destroy trees. They can do damage to people as well, thanks to the minuscule white hairs that they shed, blowing in the wind or remaining after the caterpillars have departed. The rash can arrive after picking up branches or leaves with moth hairs in them or simply by being outside near an infested tree on a breezy day. The red welts of the rash itch and burn and, unlike poison ivy, the bumps can grow to the size of a dime. The itching and burning can last for more than a week. In some cases, the hairs of the caterpillars can cause respiratory distress, and if you have pre-existing respiratory issues, these can be extremely serious. For farm workers, foresters and anyone laboring outside in Maine, this is one of the hazards of the job.  

Brown tail moths first arrived in the US in the late 19th century by way of Cape Cod. For nearly twenty years, the population exploded across New England, Quebec and the Tri-State area. However, the introduction of a parasitoid fungus and aggressive applications of obsolete sprays such as arsenate of lead brought the population under control by the 1920s. Minor outbreaks would occur throughout the 20th century. The parasitoid fungus, entomopohaga aulica, thrived in the cool, wet New England weather, keeping the moth population under control until 2015, when an outbreak began along the Maine coast. This outbreak has stayed largely within the state, which has entomologist Tom Schmeelk, of the Maine Forest Service perplexed. “There hasn’t been a clear definitive answer for why it has not expanded back to its reach in the early 1900s.”

However, it is suspected that Maine’s increasingly warm and dry spring weather has played a role. The fungus that proved so effective at controlling the moths naturally in years past requires a cool, wet spring to thrive. The moth larvae thrive on warmer and drier conditions, and Maine has suffered moderate to severe droughts since 2015. With no natural agents to combat them, the brown tail moths have thrived.  

When Sarah Pike purchased Tops’l Farm in Waldoboro, ME, in 2015, she had  a vision of a glamping getaway and farm destination. What she didn’t know was that many of the beautiful apple trees lining the property’s walk to the Medomak River had already succumbed to brown tail moth infestation. “Losing many of the ancient apple trees on the farm within the first few months of our stewardship to the brown tail moth, felt like the property lost a really important part of its story.”

Pike began to combat the moths. She attempted spraying the apple trees and tall oaks that surrounded her farm, but the moths kept returning. Eventually, Pike began a regimen of daily nest clipping and caterpillar squishing. The most effective way to combat the moths is by clipping their nests out in late fall or early spring, when the caterpillars are dormant and the nests are most noticeable. Barrier bands around tree trunks can also prevent caterpillars from attacking a tree, as long as any existing nests are thoroughly removed.

A tree after brown tail moths devoured it. Photography courtesy of the author.

While brown tail moths are generalists, they do seem to prefer fruit trees and oak trees, putting a strain on Maine orchards. Bob Sewall is the steward of Sewall Organic Orchard, the oldest organic orchard in the state. Sewall has been tending his orchard for more than forty years. Brown tail moth caterpillars first began to appear in his trees four years ago, and he quickly found them to be more destructive and persistent than any pest he had faced before. Having never sprayed his trees, his first focus was to prune the larval clusters out.

“We took over 1,200 nests out,” Sewall says. “And we still didn’t get them all.  It was a losing battle; if you miss one nest, that can defoliate an entire tree.”  

Fortunately for Sewall and Pike, sprays are available that are effective against the moths. Sewall uses a combination of BT and Entrust organic insecticide, and he now sprays his orchard twice a year with this mix. But spraying is ineffective in a 65-foot-tall oak tree, and the moth population across the state continues to grow.

While some urban towns have organized volunteer efforts to clip out the moth nests on town property, the battle against brown tail moths has been left largely in the hands of individual landowners. In a state covered in majestic, old-growth trees that reach up to the sky, clipping and spraying both require a tree crane, which has greatly hampered individuals’ efforts to fight the outbreak. The Maine Forest Service suggests that if hiring a crane is cost prohibitive, a collection of neighbors might combine resources to have their area treated, but such co-operation does not always occur.  

While Maine scientists hope for a natural decrease in the moth’s population, they are also working on other mitigation methods, such as the release of the female sex pheromone, which confuses the males and disrupts the mating cycle. “This would be highly specific to the brown tail moth, so no non-target effects on beneficial insects,” says University of Maine Forest Entomologist Angela Mech. “It is eco-friendly and has the potential to be highly effective for a large area.”

While we wait for new mitigation methods or a return of the moth killing fungus, Mainers will continue to suffer from the brown tail moth rash. Long sleeves and limiting outdoor time can help reduce the risks of the rash developing, but for farmers who have to be outside every day and often work directly in moth-infested areas, topical ointments and sprays are available that specifically treat the brown tail moth rash and can provide relief.  

“We are still in an outbreak,” Mech says. “We will be itchy this summer.”

The post Brown Tail Moth Outbreak Makes Life Itchy for Maine Farmers appeared first on Modern Farmer.