THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The Dept of Agriculture has begun a program to to promote healthy bee colonies after years of being decimated by pesticides and GMO's.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture was set to announce Tuesday a multimillion-dollar program to feed rapidly dwindling honeybee populations in the Midwest, where farmers and ranchers depend on the insects to pollinate their crops and pastures.

Commercial honeybees pollinate an estimated $15 billion worth of produce each year. Many beekeepers take hives to the upper Midwest in the summer for bees to gather nectar and pollen for food, then truck them in the spring to California and other states to pollinate everything from almonds to apples to avocados.

But agricultural production has been threatened by a more than decadelong decline in commercial honeybees and their wild cousins because of habitat loss and pesticide use.

A phenomenon called colony collapse disorder, in which honeybees suddenly disappear or die, has made the problem worse, raising losses over the winter to as much as 30 percent per year.

The USDA hopes to stem those losses by providing more areas for bees to build up food stores and strength for winter. The new program, details of which were provided to The Associated Press ahead of the announcement, will be "a real shot in the arm" for improving bees' habitat and food supplies, said Jason Weller, chief of the USDA's National Resources Conservation Service.

Dairy farmers and ranchers in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas can qualify for about $3 million to reseed pastures with alfalfa, clover and other plants that are useful to both bees and livestock. Farmers also can get help building fences, installing water tanks and making other changes that better enable them to move their animals from pasture to pasture so the vegetation doesn't become worn down. The goal is to provide higher-quality food for insects and animals.

"It's a win for the livestock guys, and it's a win for the managed honeybee population," Weller said. "And it's a win then for orchardists and other specialty crop producers across the nation because then you're going to have a healthier, more robust bee population that then goes out and helps pollinate important crops."

Maybe providing more than just the target crop to feed on will help the hives. Time will tell.