OXFORD, Ohio – Common knowledge says that soybeans don’t need pollinators. However, Alexander Zomchek, a Miami University researcher, is studying whether pollinators could increase soybean yields and if that might be a way to have soybean farmers and beekeepers shaking hands over the fence.

Zomchek is also state bee inspector for the Ohio Department of Agriculture and director with the Ohio State Beekeepers Association.

Several years ago, Zomchek ran across studies done in Canada and South America where researchers had cordoned off an area with netting. The soil and weather were the same, but researchers placed pollinators in the cordoned area. Those small studies showed that there was a benefit to having pollinators in the soybeans instead of relying on the haphazardness of wind pollination, Zomchek said.

“If you put in pollinators in a small area, and that area was literally over-pollinated – they could go and hit the same flowers multiple times – they got everywhere from a 7 percent to up as high as a 15 percent yield increase in the soybeans on these small patches,” he said. “So, we arrive at two sets of data: one, we know that soybeans, in general, don’t need pollinators, but, two, if we have over-pollination, then soybeans can benefit.”

In his work with beekeepers around the state, Zomchek had discovered over time that there is a significant difference between the honey crop in the northern (north of U.S. 30) and the southern parts of Ohio.

“The question was why,” he said. “There are forested areas around here (southern Ohio), we’re getting the black locust bloom, the honeysuckle bloom, the wildflower, and clover bloom, and we have all these soybeans too. So why are you (in the north) getting a consistently higher honey crop yield than we are?”

Statewide, forage has diminished. In years past, there were more forests and fencerows, more dairy farms growing clover and alfalfa, there were wild prairies. Plus, perhaps today’s bees are not as hearty as they once were.

“In Oxford in the 1850s, when L.L. Langstroth was doing his work in developing the modern hive that the world uses today, he and the beekeepers of those days were reporting that there were honey crops on average coming in at 150, 200 plus pounds of honey surplus per colony per year.”

Today it would be generous to say that the average southern Ohio beekeeper sees maybe 60 pounds of surplus honey (surplus honey is what the beekeeper can take off versus what they have to let in for overwintering bees). Beekeepers in the northern part of the state are getting 120 pounds plus of surplus honey. It’s not as good as in years past but better than the honey crops of the middle and southern portions of the state.

Zomchek started parsing the differences in soil, weather patterns; then he hit on the types of hybrid soybeans planted in northern and southern Ohio. The flowers of many of the soybean hybrids planted in northern Ohio produce more nectar than those grown in the southern portions of the state.

He began researching at Miami University’s 250-acre Ecology Research Center, using small plots with nets over them to contain the pollinators. He hopes to find, among other things, which nectar-producing hybrid soybeans will do well in southern Ohio.

“Our data, significantly, is now absolutely conclusive,” Zomchek said. “There is enough data to suggest that we’re on the right track but not seeing the high numbers, maybe because our field spots are too small.”

The next step is to find bigger plots where the soil and weather are the same, plant a flower-producing hybrid appropriate to the area, and place 25 hives in the field. Then plant another plot with the same conditions and hybrid but no hives. At harvest the researchers can compare the yields.

“I want to prove that the hybrid of the soybean is playing a major role which means we can go back to the farmers and say, ‘proof in the pudding,’ you use this hybrid. It will work in this area,” Zomchek explained. “You’re going to make happy bees, and you’ll get a better crop yield.”

Currently, the public thinks that beekeepers and the soybean community are in a Hatfield and McCoy-type argument over the use of herbicides and pesticides. 

“But part of my way of looking at the world is, is there a way that we can get along and cooperate?” Zomchek said. “That’s where this came from. Imagine if we adopted the hybrids from the northern part of the state that are much more nectar-producing and grew well down here, then our beekeepers would have much more opportunity to grow their industry and become commercial beekeepers. Suddenly we’re no longer competing with each other. We’re in a partnership.”

The beekeeper would have a place to put hives, which isn’t as easy today as it once was – many people don’t want a hive in their backyard. The producer has an opportunity for a 7 to 15 percent yield increase.