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New Pollinator Plan Aims To Cut Kentucky’s Honeybee Losses

Sergey Lavrentev, 123rf Stock Photo

Kentucky’s Department of Agriculture is seeking public input on the state’s first pollinator protection plan. The plan lays out best management practices in an effort to slow the rapid die-off of honeybees and other pollinators.

For the past decade, honeybees and other pollinators have been dying at alarming rates. Kentucky state apiarist Tammy Horn says creating a pollinator protection plan is a first step to try to reverse that trend. “Pollinators were on the back burner for awhile. And I think it’s come back to haunt us,” she says.

Horn says complying with the pollinator plan is voluntary. It lays out steps that beekeepers, land owners, government agencies and pesticide applicators can take to try to protect local honeybee populations. There will be a public forum on the draft pollinator protection plan on Wednesday, February 24 at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture complex in Frankfort. Horn said there will be an additional forum this summer in Bowling Green.

Erica Peterson is a reporter and Kentucky Public Radio correspondent based out of WFPL in Louisville, Kentucky.
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