Farm Progress, an agricultural and farming publication with a local Michigan focused publication called Michigan Farmer, wrote a story about GLBC. The article gives a brief background on Genji’s story, the importance of pollinators in the agricultural business, details about buying bees, and information on how to get started beekeeping.
In the article, author Jennifer Kiel goes into a brief background of The Great Lakes Bee Company and how our co-founder Genji Leclair first became involved with Hasselman’s Honey. As we well know, Genji tried one bite of Hasselman’s Honey and was instantly hooked. From there, she became a part of the business, allowing the original founder Larry Hasselman to eventually retire after having mentored Genji in the apiary ways.
As an agriculturally-focused news outlet, the article then transitions to talking about how important bees are to the success of the industry. They included the graphic to the right from The American Agriculturalist to help illustrate some of the large figures surrounding the topic. One of the staggering statistics include the fact that about $15 billion of added crop value comes from bee pollination alone. That’s “b(ee)” as in “billion.”
Kiel writes, “Dinner plates across the world would look quite bare without honeybees, as about one-third of the food eaten by Americans — from nuts to fruits and vegetables — comes from crops pollinated by honeybees, USDA reports.” Kiel then goes into discussing our annual Bee Pick-Up Days in May, which she was in attendance for. See Kiel’s great pictures from the event here: here.
The interview ended with Genji talking about how to get involved with beekeeping and saving the bees. If you want and are able to have a beehive in your backyard – do it! There’s start-up costs and time commitment involved of course, but it is manageable and as always, GLBC is here to help consult.
If you’re not ready to become a parent to a hive, Genji says there’s still a lot you can do to help, “For those wanting to support honeybees, but are not interested in becoming a beekeeper, Leclair says to plant seed mixes that support distinct blooming cycles of plants benefiting pollinators, which help to create healthy environments for honeybees — and other pollinators such as butterflies, moths, beetles, flies and wasps.”
The author continues to encourage saving the bees by mentioning the Pollinator Habitat Planting Initiative “that rewards participants of newly enrolled pollinator habitat practices on eligible land with: 10 years of annual rental payments, payments covering 50% of the eligible costs of establishing the practices, 50% from a cost-share payment, [and] a sign-up incentive payment up to $150 per acre.”
To read the full article on Michigan Farmer, click here.