By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — There’s insurance for just about anything under the sun. Now some across the country can add beekeeping insurance on that growing list of coverages.

Unless one is a large, commercial beekeeping operation, beekeeping insurance has been an afterthought. But thanks to the federal Risk Management Agency (RMA), beekeeping insurance may become more commonplace in the near future.

The RMA, the federal agency that oversees and regulates crop industry nationwide, introduced the insurance last month. The guidelines for this pilot program uses either a rainfall or vegetation index, depending on the particular area of the country. Whether beekeepers get a payment would depend on the amount of rainfall or the amount of greenness.

“This pilot program utilizes these indexes and considers the natural conditions in the area,” said RMA spokesperson Michelle Bouchard. “Rainfall or greenness areas measuring 4.8 miles by 4.8 miles, or 12 miles by 12 miles, are the grid sizes to be measured by.

“If there is a drought and there’s not enough vegetation for the bees to collect nectar to produce the honey that’s something we would cover through this insurance. It covers the entire grid, not just one farmer or individual. People should keep in mind that we’re not covering the bees. We’re not insuring the honey. And we’re not insuring the bees’ health. We’re ensuring the conditions that the bees might require for expected honey production.”
Such insurance is already commonplace in states such as North Dakota, California and South Dakota, where commercial beekeeping ranks first, second and third in the country, respectively. This insurance program is available in 21 states, but not yet available to those in Ohio, Kentucky or Indiana.

Michigan ranks 10th in honey production. States such as Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky are not in that top 10 list of honey-producing states.

“It’s only available in selected states and counties to test each index in various climates,” said RMA spokesperson Shirley Pugh. “We made it available in six regions across the country: the warm and humid Southeast, the cool and humid Northeast, the Northern Great Plains, the Southern Great Plans, the semi-arid Southwest and the intermountain region of the Northwest.”

Pugh said it likely will be several growing seasons before officials decide whether to make the insurance program permanent.
Most large honey producers in these states obtained insurance through the American Beekeepers Federation or the American Honey Producers Assoc. These members got insurance for protection during transportation of hives or product liability for the honey they sell. Now they’ll be insured if there’s a lack of rainfall. Some beekeepers say the new program is expensive and amounts to betting on the weather. Others say it’s better than having no protection at all.

“In general, we think it’s great,” said Troy Fore, executive director of the American Beekeeping Federation. “We’ve been trying to get this for years.”

Coverage against things like drought, yes. But the ability to get beekeeping insurance has been around a long time, long before the RMA stepped in.

“There’s been beekeeping insurance for a number of years, but it’s not been easy to obtain and frankly it’s been expensive to get,” said John Grafton, retired Ohio Department of Agriculture state apiarist. “It’s been common among the large beekeepers, not your hobby keepers.

In Ohio beekeeping is a sideline beekeeping state, and not one of the large honey-producing states.”