DOVER, Del. – Farmers throughout Delaware depend on both honeybees and native bees to pollinate their crops each year. It takes nearly 300 million honeybees to successfully pollinate these crops, which bring more than $38.7 million to the state’s economy.

“The health of pollinators within Delaware is extremely important to the success of our family farms,” said Secretary of Agriculture Michael T. Scuse. “From early spring all the way through late summer, bees are pollinating crops that Delawareans love to eat – strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, cantaloupes, cucumbers, apples, squash, cranberries, and pumpkins. Our staff works throughout the year to ensure the safety of bees and to help increase the number of healthy colonies within the state.”

In 2016, the Delaware Department of Agriculture (DDA) released

Delaware’s Managed Pollinator Protection Plan that outlines strategies, best practices, and resources that beekeepers, farmers, landowners, and pesticide applicators can use to help protect and enhance bees and other pollinators. In conjunction with the release of this plan, the Department’s Plant Industries section secured a USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant to engage Delaware fruit and vegetable growers and beekeepers in the implementation of the plan to improve the availability and quality of bee forage and to decrease the bees’ risk of pesticide exposure. Both efforts combined to improve the health and vitality of bees, which in turn enhance pollination of crops and also enable increased production of local honey.

“One of the key best management practices that we learned in talking with all the groups involved in developing the pollinator protection plan is communication,” said Laura Mensch, DDA Hydrologist III. “We invested in DriftWatch so that pesticide applicators could check where beekeepers have their hives located before spraying – either on the ground or by aerial application. We are excited to see the recent release of the mobile DriftWatch apps, increasing the potential use and benefit of the tool.” In April 2018, FieldWatch launched two free mobile apps (both Android and iOS) called FieldCheck and BeeCheck. The goal is to make it easier for users to access the DriftWatch map while they are on the go. These new apps will allow more users, especially applicators, to access the specialty crop and beehive data on a highly functional mobile platform.

DDA asks beekeepers to register with BeeCheck so that pesticide applicators know where hives are located when they head out to spray. According to DDA State Apiarist Meghan McConnell, there are 289 registered beekeepers with 5,934 colonies in-state for 2018, but there are only 77 beekeepers registered with BeeCheck. One of those pesticide applicators is the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s Delaware Mosquito Control Section. For public awareness, including beekeepers, the Mosquito Control Section implemented a Spray Zone Notification (SZN) System, enabling a registered user to receive an alert via text, phone, or email of upcoming spray activities. Recently, two beekeepers expressed concerns regarding mosquito control aerial spraying in Sussex County and alleged impacts to the health of honeybees used for pollination there. Neither had registered with the Spray Zone Notification System.

The Mosquito Control Section’s primary work is preventing mosquito-borne diseases in humans, domestic livestock, and pets, and helping promote and maintain good quality-of-life for Delawareans and visitors, while also lessening adverse impacts to local economies that severe mosquito infestations can cause. Nineteen of the 57 mosquito species found in Delaware are known to bite humans and several can transmit mosquito-borne diseases such as Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus. In particular, the native common house mosquito is primarily a nighttime biter but is also active around dawn and dusk, and is the primary transmitter for West Nile virus in Delaware.

Eliminating breeding habitat is the best means of controlling several types of mosquitoes, but control of other species that can also transmit disease or severely affect quality-of-life often relies on timely insecticide treatments for larval or adult mosquito stages. Therefore, the Mosquito Control Section flies over areas that could become mosquito-infested, applying larvicides to water bodies as a preventive measure and adulticides if an area is already infested, and spraying only by adhering to strict protocols for public health and safety including use only of EPA-approved pesticides.

In collaboration with DDA on the Delaware Managed Pollinator Protection Plan, DNREC’s Mosquito Control Section updated standard operating procedures (SOPs) when treatments are needed around honeybees or their hives. More information on DNREC’s rationale behind their work with bees is available online.

DNREC utilizes Integrated Pest Management (IPM), employing wherever practicable non-insecticidal, source reduction measures such as water management or fish-stocking for larval mosquito control. If source reduction cannot be used or is ineffective, larvicide spraying for mosquito control is used – but such spraying does not have potential for conflicts with pollinating activities, since larvicides are applied primarily in marshes or wet woodlands, and do not have modes of action that would adversely affect honeybees.

As a last option, if larviciding cannot be done or has proven ineffective, DNREC’s Mosquito Control utilizes adulticides applied by aircraft or via truck-mounted sprayers. Aerial applications occur during late evening or early morning, for more effective mosquito control and also to minimize adverse impacts to honeybees, since they are less active or already back in their hives. Ground application of adulticides by truck-mounted sprayers (“fogging”) almost always occurs at night when honeybees are in the hive.

“The Delaware Beekeepers Association (DBA), along with Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) share a common goal – to maintain a healthy population of managed honeybee colonies in Delaware,” said DBA Secretary Rebecca Rendeiro. Aerial spraying for mosquitoes is complex, and while it does not affect every beekeeper, it is important that that there are measures in place to help protect bees to decrease the chance of a colony loss due to pesticide application, while at the same time still enabling adequate mosquito control.

Also, Delaware Department of Agriculture’s pesticide inspectors work in each county to ensure pesticides are properly applied. “Our inspectors conduct announced and unannounced visits throughout the state, including inspections of DNREC’s Mosquito Control applicators,” said DDA Pesticide Administrator Christopher Wade. “We make sure that applicators are using the product properly and safely according to the label specifications in order to protect the health of the public and pollinators.”

If beekeepers suspect that their colonies have been affected by pesticides, they can file a complaint with the Department of Agriculture. In the past year, three complaints were filed and investigated, all crop-related and none involving Mosquito Control spraying. Wade said, “We take a team approach to our investigation since we now have Meghan (McConnell, State Apiarist) on staff. Our inspectors collect samples for pesticide analysis and Meghan looks at the health of the colony and can determine if there are any other health concerns for the bees. It’s helpful for the beekeeper to have their colonies inspected.” In one instance, a notice of warning was issued to the applicator and the grower to be mindful of label directions, and an advisory was issued to the beekeeper for not alerting the grower that hives were on the premises.

Similarly, after decades of Mosquito Control adulticiding, reports of suspected damages to honeybees or hives from such treatments are few. “When we look at bee health and the number one loss for colonies in Delaware, it’s not pesticides,” said State Apiarist McConnell. “Delaware has been fighting Varroa mites since 1994 and Small Hive Beetle since 2001. When we look at colony loss in Delaware, the majority is caused by Varroa mites and the viruses transmitted by them. Bees will not survive the winter, even with enough honey stores, if there are viruses and diseases present.”

Collaboration between state agencies and beekeepers is the key to keeping honeybees safe. DNREC’s Mosquito Control Section has implemented tools to assist beekeepers and to help keep the public informed in advance of mosquito control spray activities. Beekeepers (and members of the public) can sign up for the Mosquito Control Spray Zone Notification System, a two-step process that allows a user to select their spray zone area of interest and then register to receive an alert via text, phone, or email of upcoming spray activity in that area. If beekeepers have concerns on where or when spraying is scheduled to take place relative to beehive locations or honeybee foraging areas, they should contact the Mosquito Control Section to express their concerns.

As a pesticide applicator, DNREC’s Mosquito Control Section also has the ability to check the FieldCheck and BeeCheck apps, and plan spray operations to the extent practicable around data taken from those apps. But if beekeepers have not registered with Mosquito Control’s spray notification system, or if their beehive locations are not kept up to date in FieldCheck and BeeCheck, DNREC’s Mosquito Control Section will not know that hives are located in an area when spraying there for mosquitoes.

The Delaware Department of Agriculture, DNREC’s Mosquito Control Section and the Delaware Beekeepers Association urge anyone who keeps bees in Delaware to register their bee hives and sign up for all the apps that are available that can help protect the state’s valuable pollinators.

###

Media Contact: Stacey Hofmann, 302-698-4542, stacey.hofmann@delaware.gov

Dover, Del. – During the next several weeks, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will conduct two major mid-year surveys, the June Agricultural Survey and the June Area Survey. The agency will contact around 350 producers across Delaware to determine crop acreage and stock levels as of June 1, 2018.

“Delaware family farmers produce a variety of agricultural products on 500,000 acres of farmland, creating more than $8 billion in economic activity throughout the state,” said Secretary of Agriculture Michael T. Scuse. “The information that our farmers provide in these surveys is critical to helping everyone – from fellow farmers to legislators to businesses – make decisions that will ultimately impact Delaware’s number one industry. It is critical that NASS has the most accurate data, so I urge Delaware farmers to participate in the June Surveys.”

Data for the June Agricultural Surveys are gathered by NASS via the Internet, mail, phone, or via in-person interview. For the June Area Survey, trained NASDA enumerators representing NASS visit select tracts of land and interview the operators of any farm or ranch within that selected tract. Growers are asked to provide information on planted and harvested acreage – including acreage for biotech crops – and grain stocks. Additionally, the survey collects data on livestock inventory, cash rents, land values, and value of sales.

“NASS safeguards the privacy of all respondents and publishes only state- and national-level data, ensuring that no individual operation or producer can be identified,” stated Dale P. Hawks, Maryland/Delaware State Statistician of the NASS Northeastern Regional Office. “We recognize this is a hectic time for farmers and ranchers, but the information they provide helps U.S. agriculture remain viable and capable.”

NASS will analyze the survey information and publish the results in a series of USDA reports, including the annual Acreage and quarterly Grain Stocks reports, both to be released June 29, 2018. Survey data also contribute to NASS’s monthly and annual Crop Production reports, the annual Small Grains Summary, the annual Farms and Land in Farms and Land Values reports, various livestock reports, including Cattle, Sheep and Goats, and Hogs and Pigs, and USDA’s monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.

These and all NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/. For more information call the NASS Delaware Field Office at 800-282-8685.

###

Media Contact: Stacey Hofmann, 302-698-4542, stacey.hofmann@delaware.gov

DOVER – When a new shellfish grower recently placed his first shipment of tiny oysters in growing cages in Rehoboth Bay, it marked the physical start of Delaware’s shellfish aquaculture program administered by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s Division of Fish & Wildlife. “Planting” the tiny oysters on leased acreage was the realization of an idea that began in 2012 with conversations between DNREC, the Delaware Department of Agriculture, the Center for the Inland Bays, Delaware SeaGrant, and stakeholders – and which led to legislation in 2013 authorizing commercial shellfish aquaculture in Delaware’s Inland Bays.

“We see this as a significant first step in the development of the new shellfish aquaculture industry,” DNREC Secretary Shawn M. Garvin said. “We are making great strides in the Inland Bays in improving water quality and the ecology, and shellfish aquaculture contributes to achieving those goals. It is very encouraging to see this first seeding of what will become the foundation for commercially-grown oysters and hard clams in Delaware.”

In addition to the leaseholder cited above, DNREC’s Shellfish Aquaculture Program has received 23 lease applications to date for the new industry. If all of these applications are approved after the review process, 126 acres will be leased for shellfish aquaculture in the Inland Bays – with maximum acreage limited by law to 5 percent of Rehoboth and Indian River Bays, and 43 acres in Little Assawoman Bay. NOTE: Outside of the leased shellfish aquaculture acreage, the Inland Bays are accessible and open to recreational fishing, crabbing and clamming, subject to Delaware’s normal recreational fishing license and regulation requirements.

Applications for shellfish aquaculture leasing are continuously being accepted and evaluated by the Division of Fish & Wildlife. On May 10, DNREC updated the Inland Bays interactive shellfish aquaculture maps to reflect acreage currently available for lease. (For more information on the program, the latest information on the shellfish aquaculture webpage on the DNREC website.)

As with the tiny oysters sown by the new grower in Rehoboth Bay, acreage already leased is showing signs of shellfish aquaculture activity. Throughout spring, shellfish growers have been arranging to purchase young oyster and hard clam “seed” to place on their Inland Bays’ leases. These planted shellfish are very small now, but will grow to market size. Shellfish aquaculture is considered environmentally “green” as an industry because shellfish filter the water and get all their nutrition from it. The filtering and feeding of the oysters can result in the reduction of excess nutrients such as nitrogen that cause algal blooms and decrease water clarity.

It is also expected that the new shellfish aquaculture program will result in a boost for Delaware’s economy. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) Fisheries estimated that in 2015, US shellfish farmers produced an estimated $295 million in product. The Virginia Institute of Marine Science estimated that the value of the oysters and clams sold in Virginia alone in 2017 was $56.6 million. In time, and with a lot of care and attention from the state’s new shellfish growers, the Inland Bays-grown oysters planted this spring will be available for sale in a year or two.

Media contact: Michael Globetti, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 48, No. 127

-30–

DOVER – Governor John C. Carney, Jr. presided over the Delaware Forest Service’s 2018 Arbor Day Celebration at DNERR St. Jones Reserve in Dover on Friday, May 4.

Joined by Rep. Harvey Kenton, Rep. David Wilson, Agriculture Secretary Michael T. Scuse, and DNREC Secretary Shawn M. Garvin, Governor Carney honored the winners of the Delaware Forest Service’s Arbor Day School Poster Contest, including Statewide Winner Amelia Meyer of Southern Delaware School of the Arts in Selbyville. The 2018 poster contest theme was “Trees are Terrific… and Perfect for Pollinators!” The Governor also recognized representatives from some of Delaware’s 17 Tree City USA communities, including Dover Air Force Base and Arden. The event culminated with the ceremonial planting of two new hawthorn trees, part of a new “science garden” at the reserve,  in keeping the 2018 poster contest theme and its focus on pollinators.

Click here for a photo gallery of the 2018 Arbor Day Poster Contest winners

2018 Arbor Day Poster Contest Winners

New Castle County Winners

Kindergarten – Jade Munoz-Martinez- Academia Antonia Alonso, Wilmington
Grade 1-2 – Makalani Collins -Jennie Smith Elementary, New Castle
Grade 3-4 – Madison Butts – Heritage Elementary, Wilmington
Grade 5 – Chase Puszkarczuk – Heritage Elementary, Wilmington

Kent County Winners

Kindergarten – Audriana Friday – McIlvaine Early Childhood Center, Magnolia
Grade 1-2 – MaKenna Barclay – Nellie Stokes Elementary, Dover
Grade 3-4 – Gianni Coblentz – Hartly Elementary, Hartly
Grade 5 – Jacob Simons – W.B. Simpson Elementary, Wyoming

Sussex County Winners

Kindergarten – Michael Foracre – Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary, Laurel
Grade 1-2 – Yojana Garcia-Lopez – Mispillion Elementary, Milford
Grade 3-4 – Samantha Geidel – Southern Delaware School of Arts, Selbyville
Grade 5 – Amelia Meyer – Southern Delaware School of Arts, Selbyville

Each poster contest winner received a tree-themed book and a print reproduction of their poster on fine art canvas. Thanks to corporate sponsor Delmarva Power, a free tree planting ceremony will also be held at each winner’s school. In addition, every participating classroom receives free pine seedlings for all participants. Once again this year, students from the Middletown High School FFA Chapter and senior volunteers from the Modern Maturity Center in Dover are wrapping thousands of seedlings to distribute to schoolchildren statewide. Check out the previous year’s winners:

• View 2017 Arbor Day Contest Winners
• View 2016 Arbor Day Contest Winners
• View 2015 Arbor Day Contest Winners
• View 2014 Arbor Day Contest Winners

For more information, email: Ashley Melvin

DOVER – The Delaware Forest Service has awarded $58,244 to fund 16 tree planting projects throughout the First State. Since 2007, the agency has given more than $1.7 million to cities, towns and homeowner groups to support community tree efforts that take place on public lands. Recipients provide a 50-50 cost-share match in either non-federal funds or in-kind services such as volunteer time, equipment, or donated supplies.

“These urban forestry grants are a central part of our agency’s efforts to meet our statewide program goals. Tree planting projects help to bring people together, build awareness about the importance of proper tree care in community settings, and highlight the many benefits of increasing tree canopy,” said Kesha Braunskill, Delaware Forest Service’s urban and community forestry director.

Delaware’s Urban and Community Forestry Grant Program is a competitive process open to all municipalities, community associations, and certified 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations in the State of Delaware. Funds can only be utilized on public property owned by the municipality, HOA, or nonprofit organization. Grants ranged from $500 to a maximum of $5,000 in two project categories: tree planting or tree management. Applications were limited to one project in one category and were judged on a competitive basis by the grant committee of the Delaware Community Forestry Council. Eligible projects must be performed on public lands within the community. Priority was given to first time applicants, Tree Friendly Communities, and applicants that have passed an Urban Tree Canopy Goal Resolution (only applies to Municipalities).

2018 Delaware Urban and Community Forestry Grants

For more information, contact Kesha Braunskill, kesha.braunskill@delaware.gov or 302-698-4578.

###