Buzz on the Range
This project is a collaboration with Western Sustainability Exchange that attempts to demonstrate, with our producer partners as the focus, alternative practices to promote healthy bee populations. We are working in southwestern Montana’s Paradise Valley to support a coalition of five ranchers on 8,900 acres of range. In this project we aim to find innovative ways to establish nectar and pollen producing flowers through facilitating endozoochory (dispersion of seed through ruminant dung) and utilizing rotational, adaptive grazing.
There is an urgent need for resilient soil, grass, and bee habitat in our rangelands. Though most of the folks that we work with love planting for bees simply because it’s fun, interesting, and the right thing to do – in order for this to be scalable, it can only be achieved through fiscally viable approaches. The Buzz on the Range project attempts to demonstrate, with ranchers as the focus (supported by BGO, MSU, and WSE), alternative practices to promote healthy bee populations, while also improving pasture plant diversity and healthy cows.
Project Objectives
Objective 1: Increase producer and consumer interest in the connection between soil health, bees, and grazing in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Objective 2: Build and support a coalition of producers who are adaptive grazing, who are interested in increasing their bee communities and who are interested in connecting with Montana beekeepers.
Objective 3: Test adaptive grazing plans with participating producers to support bees.
Objective 4: Measure bees and soil health over 3 years in several locations.
Objective 5: Provide community promotion of engaged producers involved in the project.
Objective 6: Collect and share the economics of the considered practices involved in this project.
