Pollinators on the Plains - A KRC Virtual Conference - Recap

In 2020, the world as we know it altered owing to the pandemic that swept the globe. Lives changed, lives and livelihoods were lost, paradigms shifted. Food and farming took on new relevance as ordinary tasks and perceived certainties, such as ready access to food and other staples, became difficult or out of reach. People turned to local farmers to fill their food needs at levels that are unprecedented in recent memory. This shift presented both opportunities and challenges for farmers, and above all, a need to adjust to the new “normal”.  

At KRC, we’ve had to adjust to a new normal as well. The pandemic temporarily took away our ability to gather people together for education and connection so we took to digital meetings and engagement, as did so many others, and worked hard to keep connections alive and to bring information to our friends and contacts via online platforms such as Zoom and Whova.  

In February 2021, we held a virtual Pollinators on the Plains conference. Over 120 people attended, and it was an uplifting event filled with great information on the impacts of pollinators from pesticides, farming practices that benefit pollinators, diverse methods of keeping and housing honeybees, and two regional community initiatives that benefit pollinators while enhancing the community. It was good to see faces of friends, both old and new, coming together via our computer screens circling the campfire around our love of pollinators. 

While there are obvious downsides to not being able to meet in person, there are a few perks to hosting a virtual conference. An online event allows for easier access for more people to attend, and allows for inviting high caliber speakers from near and far, as the limitations of traveling and scheduling are less complicated and restrictive.  

We had a wealth of incredible speakers at our Pollinators on the Plains conference, including Dan Raichel, NRDC Staff Attorney, who heads the group’s Pollinator Initiative. Raichel outlined the impacts of pesticides on pollinators and the role that agriculture plays in pollinator decline. In addition to general information about the perils to pollinators from agricultural chemicals that are used extensively on farm fields in the Midwest (and elsewhere), Raichel informed the group about a pollinator harming pesticide-caused environmental disaster that has been unfolding over the past year in Nebraska, sickening pets and livestock, and ultimately ending in a ban on using neonic-coated seeds in ethanol production in the state. You can watch Raichel’s presentation here - https://youtu.be/jUCsm-lTmkY. 

Raichel mentioned in his keynote address that U.S. beekeepers report losing about 40% of their colonies each year. While interest in keeping honeybees has skyrocketed over the past decade, the challenges of keeping honeybee colonies healthy and alive is a formidable task as the factors that plague pollinators and honeybees - including pesticides, habitat loss, disease and climate change - continue to wreak havoc. To help beekeepers, or those dreaming of becoming a beekeeper, to navigate these challenges, we offered information on a range of beekeeping methods at the conference. Four regional beekeepers, all of whom utilize different tools, philosophies and strategies for keeping bees, shared their knowledge and answered questions, giving attendees lots of choices for getting started in beekeeping and keeping bees healthy in these challenging beekeeping times. Additionally, the Center for Rural Affairs presented findings from their study on the efficacy of different hive types.  

Sarah Red-Laird, founder of Bee Girl, a Washington state-based non-profit which works to protect and promote honeybees, talked about a regenerative bee pasture project she is working on in Montana that involves interseeding pastures with bee habitat, offering a win-win for the rancher and for pollinators. The project has good potential for replication here in Kansas, and offered inspiration and motivation for a number of farmers who attended the conference.  

Candy Thomas, NRCS Soil Health Specialist, gave an overview of farming methods that are beneficial to pollinators. So many of the practices that benefit soil health and microorganisms, such as reducing or eliminating chemicals, planting a diverse array of crops, utilizing cover crops and leaving natural habitat around your crop fields, also benefit pollinator populations on the farm.  

In urban communities, efforts to protect and benefit pollinators can also provide big benefits for the people who live in the communities. MO Hives KC Co-Founder, Dr. Marion Pierson, and Manhattan Pollinator Pockets Director, Alfonso Leyva, talked about the uplifting and engaging projects they have going on in their respective communities, and they ways in which the projects benefit both pollinators and people in the communities where they are taking place. MO Hives KC’s aim is to bring honeybees and beekeeping to an urban environment to engage the community in beekeeping and to provide beauty and wonder. Manhattan Pollinator Pockets aims to increase pollinator habitat, engaging the community in pollinator conservation and also adding beauty and wonder.  

Surprisingly, bees and other pollinators often do well in urban environments, due to lower concentration of pollinator-harming pesticides and the abundance of flowering plants found in many urban neighborhoods.  

As Dr. Pierson notes, “We’ve seen that bees actually thrive in (urban) areas due to their lower levels of pesticides and herbicides. Bees are an important element to our ecosystem and have suffered a severe population decline over the last 20 years. We aim to rejuvenate those populations while also rejuvenating urban neighborhoods.” 

It was an information and inspiration packed day, and the time flew by, despite being glued to the computer screen for the bulk of a day. A number of the presenters have allowed us to share the presentations with you, and they can be found here (scroll to bottom of page).   

In order to continue the impact of this educational event, we created a resource filled with information on attracting and protecting pollinators on the farm and a host of other additional information that we hope you will find useful in helping to protect pollinators and attracting and keeping bees on your farm, in your yard, or in your community.