Touch: Sam GO, Communications Director, (608) 334-0220, [email protected]
A remark via Secretary Randy Romanski of the Wisconsin Division of Agriculture, Business and Shopper Coverage (DATCP)
MADISON, Wis. – It’s no secret that the agriculture trade is filled with a large number of onerous paintings. Our state’s manufacturers, farm employees, and processors paintings onerous year-round, day to day, to provide the meals, gas, and fiber that make up Wisconsin’s $104.8 billion agriculture trade. However there’s every other class of small-but-mighty employees that still assist stay our agriculture trade thriving: the honey bee.
In 2022, Wisconsin ranked eleventh within the country for the manufacturing of honey. With roughly 53,000 honey generating hives within the state, we produced just about 3 million kilos of this sticky-sweet substance, making Wisconsin honey an $8.86 million trade. At DATCP, we’re proud to paintings with beekeepers, and with the Wisconsin Honey Manufacturers Affiliation, to assist give protection to our state’s bees and marketplace the scrumptious Wisconsin commodity.
However honey bees do a lot more than simply produce a scrumptious product that we like to devour. They’re pollinators that play an very important function within the expansion of more than a few produce plants within the state. Lots of our favourite meals are partly or absolutely reliant on insect pollinators to provide fruit, together with cranberries, apples, strawberries, and tomatoes, amongst others. Different pollinators, like flower flies, butterflies, and hummingbirds, additionally be offering vital contributions to crop and wildflower pollination.
Thru state statutes, DATCP is tasked with overseeing the state’s beekeeping trade and tracking for the detection and eradication of honey bee pests and illnesses. As well as, the dep. regulates the import of honey bees and beekeeping apparatus into the state. In the course of the Pollinator Coverage Plan DATCP first evolved in 2016, the dep. additionally educates and empowers house owners, gardeners, farmers, and pesticide applicators to do what they are able to to offer protection to pollinators, our meals provide, and our agricultural economic system.
Brian Kuhn, Director of DATCP’s Plant Business Bureau lately said, “DATCP workforce paintings to advertise honey bee well being, from offering certificate to seasoned industrial beekeepers so they are able to delivery their bees to different states for crop pollination to hobbyists simply getting began who want recommendation. We additionally succeed in out to beekeepers from out-of-state in quest of to deliver bees to Wisconsin to make sure import necessities are met.”
DATCP additionally helps the beekeeping trade via using an Apiary Program Coordinator and two different inspectors faithful only to the state’s apiary trade and hobbyists. Apiary program workforce supply unfastened seasonal inspections, pest and illness diagnostic products and services, and academic outreach for over 250 honey manufacturers and industrial pollinators each and every yr. In addition they supply control suggestions for established pests like Varroa mites and illnesses like Ecu foulbrood. Workforce acquire honey bee samples each and every yr as a part of a countrywide survey in an try to discover rising threats to beekeepers, like Tropilaelaps mites.
DATCP is lately present process a countrywide recruitment to fill the vital function of Apiary Program Coordinator. Candidates are inspired to use via March 25. For more info in regards to the place or to use, talk over with Wisc.Jobs.
Merely put, honey bees are a very powerful component of Wisconsin agriculture, running along us to stay our flowering plants thriving. To determine extra about how you’ll be able to assist give protection to controlled and wild pollinators, talk over with https://datcp.wi.gov/Pages/Programs_Services/PollinatorProtection.aspx.