Honey bees are responsible for one-third of the human food supply. And with their decline in numbers these past years local farmers join forces to stop what could drastically be a change in our diet.
Nathan Kluger, owner of Hedgegrove Winery and Meadery, installed stationary apiaries in nearby grain crop farms to boost pollen and honey production.
“One of the biggest things that make this place so friendly to raising bees and apiculture is, I think, the just wide variety of nectar that’s available for quite a long period of time. Farmers can probably tell me better, what I’m focusing on is what they’re growing.” Kluger
Kluger produces mead, which is wine made from honey.
Between April 2014 to 2015, American beekeepers lost 42 percent of their honeybee colonies. That's up almost 8 percent from the last survey, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
Indiana lost almost seventeen percent of colonies, in the same year. While Illinois lost a staggering 52 percent.
Bees enable the production of at least 90 commercially grown crops in North America and are responsible for adding more than $15 billion a year to the value of U.S. agricultural products, according to theIndiana University of Bloomington.
