WCN February 2020 Web

BeeWhere
By GLENN FANKHAUSER | Kern County Agricultural Commissioner
After years of talking about how
California’s bee tracking system
needed a major overhaul, 2020
will finally be a big test of a new
statewide system. Thanks to the cooperative
efforts of the California State
Beekeepers Association, the California
Association of Pest Control Advisors,
the Almond Board of California,
and the California Agricultural
Commissioners and Sealers Association,
the BeeWhere program will see its first
real season of almond/bee interaction
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in the next couple of months. Both
CAPCA and CACASA have been
promoting the new system as a way
to streamline processes for all entities
involved, including state regulators.
Probably the two most important
factors which led to the program’s development
are the importance of protecting
pollinators (bees) and the need for
a uniform statewide system. Previously,
counties had a very diverse method of
tracking hive locations, with many still
adhering to the antiquated system of
‘pinning’ locations
to a physical map
in their office. Add
to that the fact that,
due to the nature of
the business, beekeepers
tend to be
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largely transient as a
whole made it even
more difficult to develop
this program.
However, with
current technology
being what it is, even
the most tech-averse
individual should
be able to work with
this software.
Beekeepers no
longer need to come
into county offices
or to call to register
their hive locations
or relocations (historically
the main
problem as usually
beekeepers might
register once when
they enter a county
and then wouldn’t
contact the ag
department until the following year, regardless
of how many times they moved
their hives). Now all that is needed is
to open an app on your smart phone
and utilizing the GPS of the phone,
pinpoint the exact location of the hives.
Therefore, many locations can be easily
entered on a real time basis, freeing the
beekeeper from the need for additional
paperwork, or to burden them with the
extra step of contacting the agricultural
department. Our office, like most other
Agricultural Commissioner offices
throughout the State will do whatever
we can to walk the beekeepers through
the procedure if any of them have any
questions or cannot figure the system
out.
On the other side of the coin, the
system is also accessible by growers,
pest control advisors, and applicators
to find out the locations of bees which
might be close to their fields so that they
can adjust their pesticide applications
accordingly. It is important to remember
however, that applicators are still
required to perform a visual check for
hives prior to making their treatments.
While the overarching goal of the
BeeWhere program is to protect bees
from pesticides, it will also provide a
great service in that it will reduce the
likelihood that an applicator is responsible
for an accidental bee kill because
they were unaware of hive locations.
One of the hopes is that this system will
aid in the communication necessary
between growers and beekeepers and
therefore make good neighbors of everyone.
For more information, you can
visit beewherecalifornia.com.
Comments about this article? We want
to hear from you. Feel free to email us at
article@jcsmarketinginc.com
60
West Coast Nut February 2020