Pollination in Kentucky

The state of Kentucky is in the process of turning mountain lands of Appalachia that have been used for surface mining of coal into habitat for honey bees and native pollinators. The Kentucky Senate passed a pollinator bill that acknowledges current efforts to make mine reclamation more environmentally responsible by allowing pollination sites to be established on reclaimed land. The efforts also involve planting of trees and undercanopy plants that are attractive to bees and other pollinators. Among the trees being used for reforestation are sourwood and American chestnut. Bees make famous honey from sourwood grown at elevation in the mountains. The American chestnut is being restored after being decimated by blight in the 1900s. Not only are the Kentucky efforts restoring the foliage in the mountains, they are starting a beekeeping industry to provide economic opportunities in Appalachia. Among those who have been working to change the mine reclamation practices is Tammy Horn, who helped establish the Coal Country Beeworks. The Beeworks is training beekeepers and placing honey bee hives on former mining sites. The sites employed a type of mining known as mountain top removal, a technique in which rock and coal are removed without drilling mine shafts. Tammy Horn, the author of Bees in America: How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation, wrote a piece in today’s New York Times about the honey bee. To read an interesting description of the evolution of our honey bee, its worldwide spread by humans, and its use by beekeepers visit http://www.nytimes.com/info/bees/. I congratulate Tammy and all who are working to restore pollinator habitat in Appalachia. They are helping the local economy while building a “honey corridor” in the region.

Today’s photo shows a honey bee collecting nectar from forsythia, an old-time favorite shrub and one of the first colorful plants to bloom in the late winter. The honey bees learn to access the forsythia’s nectary from the sides of the blossom, reaching the nectar between the flower petals.
--Richard

Repairing Damaged Mountains

Tammy Horn is a soft-spoken beekeeper who has been able to move people who literally move mountains. Coal mining companies in the mountains of Appalachia have been increasingly employing a technique of mining called mountain top removal to extract coal without digging mine shafts. As the name implies, the tops of mountains are taken apart and the coal removed, leaving the rubble of remaining rock and soil. Following land restoration rules which were not designed to optimize the environmental effect, the coal companies restore the scarred landscape by pushing the rubble into contours. The rubble is then compacted using heavy machinery. Tammy, who grew up in Hazard, Kentucky and learned beekeeping from her grandparents, recognized the potential for using the restored coal mine land for beekeeping. There exists a need for economic development in Appalachia, and Tammy sees in beekeeping a potential cottage industry. The area is also the natural range for some of the best of the honey plants: tuliptree, black locust, and sourwood. Tammy helped convince the coal companies that they could alter their reclamation techniques to make the mountain soil suitable for growing nectar-producing trees and plants. The magnificent American chestnut is even being reintroduced into its native Appalachian range.

Go to http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/coal-mines-bee-friendly.html to follow the great environmental work that the coal companies, universities, foresters, and beekeepers are doing to improve life and the environment in what Tammy sees as a “honey corridor” in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. She wants to put bee hives on the 33,000 acres of reclaimed coal mine land and establish “genetic islands” of honey bees. Today’s photo, taken by Alice Jones, shows Tammy Horn and her colleague, Allen Meyers, working bees at the James River Coal site near Hazard, Kentucky. There’s yellow clover in the foreground and sourwood in the margins of the forest. Tammy is the author of an excellent history, Bees in America: How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation. I’m anxiously waiting for her next book.
--Richard