Virginia Beehive Program

 RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) is now accepting applications for the 2021 Beehive Distribution Program. Applications will be accepted through August 4, 2021. The program provides free equipment for assembling new beehives to Virginia residents. Qualified applicants will be selected at random from all eligible applications received during the application period.

Individuals who are residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and 18 years of age or older at the time an application is submitted, are eligible to receive beehive units. Entities such as businesses, non-profit organizations, and government agencies are not eligible to receive beehive units. Multiple individuals with the same mailing and/or physical address (household) may apply to the program, however; distribution of beehive units is limited to no more than three beehive units per household in the same fiscal year, July 1 to June 30.

 Recipients of beehive units must assemble the equipment and occupy it with a colony of honey bees within one year of receiving the equipment. VDACS does not provide honey bees, equipment for managing the hives such as personal safety equipment, or honey processing equipment.

To learn more about the Beehive Distribution Program or submit an application beginning July 20, please visit the Beehive Distribution Program website.

For more information, contact the VDACS Office of Plant Industry Services at 804.786.3515 or vabees@vdacs.virginia.gov.

–Michael Wallace, VDACS

Impact Assessments – Local Food Systems Response to Covid

 

As part of the Local Food Systems Response to COVID project, AMS partnered with 17 organizations representing different sectors of local and regional food systems. Each organization completed impact assessments of documenting COVID effects on their stakeholders in August 2020 and again in May 2021. A few highlights from the May 2021 snapshots are noted below:

• Online platforms became essential and many farmers markets, CSAs, and food hubs plan to continue using them. CSA shares sold out quickly in 2020 and were often enough to compensate for the sales that were lost to restaurants. Similarly, many food hubs pivoted to direct to consumer sales, which helped make up for the loss of restaurant and school markets.
• Meat processors, which provided value-added meats to restaurants and specialty markets, saw a significant decrease in demand and an increase in demand for its slaughter service. Ranchers booked-out further in advance, but processors faced labor shortages with the increased severity of the pandemic.
• The flour shortage in the national supply chain opened an opportunity for regional millers to fill this gap even as supplies remained tight. Demand for baking and malt businesses is slowly returning as restaurants and retail bakeries reopen.
• Fishers have responded by selling significant amounts of their catch at dockside pick-up sites, and off-boat sales. Home delivery of community supported fisheries (CSF) have also been successful in seafood sales.
• Many independent groceries worked more closely with local farmers and produce suppliers. A remaining obstacle for smaller stores is investment in e-commerce, which larger grocers are doing successfully.

These assessments show that many organizations and stakeholders are rising to the challenges that the pandemic presented and are advancing community food economies that support racial equity and nutrition security. 

 

 

Help Livestock Beat the Heat

We are in the middle of summer with temperatures routinely in the 90’s.  I thought that I would remind you to look for ways you can help livestock be less stressed in high heat conditions.

Heat stress on our livestock is a is a critically important aspect of our production that we have to control. Heat stress accounts for million’s of dollars in productivity losses to our livestock industry every year, just due to the decreases in performance, decreases in fertility and the potential of mortality.

Now that the heat is on, it is important to have a plan in place and to plan ahead to make sure when there is a readily made plan to put into action.

Here are some basic rules to remember:

 

Make plenty of water available. Water consumption is critical during the summer months. Once the temperature rises to about 90 degrees and during the hot summer, animals consume water at five times their dry matter intake.. So, it is important that that you have a good quality (clean, cool and fresh) and quantity water source that's available to them at all times, This is where maintained of water throughs, availability and flow can become important.

 

Make shade Available. Natural shade is preferred and cost effective if available. When utilizing sunshades, the animals should have about 20 square feet per head of shade access at any given time of the day.  The use of buildings work when proper ventilation exists.

 

Incorporate Fans, Misters and other devices when appropriate. Air movement can increase livestock comfort greatly and over the years dairies and other operations have effectively shown the value of incorporating other devices.

 

Modify the pen surface. If you don't have the opportunity to have sunshade, you can adapt the pen surface. Remember, a simple dirt floor during the hot summer months can become very warm due to the solar radiation, sometimes up to140 degrees or more.  Putting down a barrier of dry bedding can actually drop the surface temperature of that pen floor by a measurable amount.  Some research points to 15-25 degrees.

 

Consider Modifying Feeding Times for confined Livestock.  Change feeding schedule’s to the cooler parts of the day

 

Maximize nighttime cooling.  Livestock accumulate heat during the day, and they dissipate it during the nighttime cooling hours. Provide adequate grazing space, room to separate at the feed bunk.  DM intake can be greater at night or early morning hours according to some studies. It can take 6-8 hours of nighttime cooling to be able to dissipate the heat load that they picked up during the day.

 

For more information contact cchilds@vt.edu or your County Extension agent.

2021 Southeast Hay Contest

 

Congratulations to the Virginia Extension agents and producers who submitted hay and baleage samples in 2020! The Southeast Hay Contest officiants were well aware that our producers were doing some good things in Virginia pertaining to harvested forages!!

 

The rules and entry forms for the 2021 Southeast Hay Contest have been released.  

 

You can find information on the web at: https://site.caes.uga.edu/sehaycontest/

 

Please start talking to your hay and baleage producers now! We did have the overall Grand Prize Contest Winner from Virginia! Last year we had eighteen (18) samples submitted in our first year of participation! Let’s try to double it!!

 

Please note in Virginia we would like to send our samples in bulk. This worked great last year. Please get your county’s samples to Dr. Katie Payne at the Southern Piedmont AREC by August 13, 2021.

 

The address at SPAREC is 2375 Darvills Rd Blackstone, VA 23824. The $22 fee covers the forage test and entry fee and must be from the farm or person submitting the sample along with the paperwork.  

Virginia did amazingly well in the 2020 Southeast Hay Contest. I hope you will join us in helping the producers reach their goals.

 

If you have any questions, contact Katie Payne at 434-818-5542 or email kathrynpayne@vt.edu or Cynthia Gregg at 434-848-2151 or email at clgregg@vt.edu.

 

 

Thank you for all you do, 

Katie Payne

Cynthia Gregg