A grant of more than $54,000 has been approved by Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring for North Dakota's Agriculture in the Classroom program.

Goehring believes that the programs will provide immense help to teachers to make agriculture part of students' everyday learning by getting access to lesson materials and other tools.

The approval for the grants means $32,000 for Farm Bureau to organize teacher training seminars, $14,000 to the state FFA Foundation for a mini-grant program, $4,800 to North Dakota State University to publish the North Dakota Ag Mag, and $3,500 to the North Dakota Geographic Alliance for a teacher tour.

A rise in the number of bee colonies has been witnessed in the nation's leading honey-producing state as the landowners have started to accept the boxlike colonies.

State and industry officials in North Dakota appreciated beekeepers for providing significant help in reversing the trend of declining bee colonies. Also, the officials said that attempts to register colonies and a unique effort to help beekeepers and landowners live in harmony played an important role to see a considerable rise in the number of bee colonies.

According to Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, 510,000 colonies have been registered by beekeepers this year compared to 482,500 colonies registered by beekeepers last year.

A spike in registration compliance is also attributable to education and outreach done by his department's apiary staff, informed Goehring.

"The Pollinator Plan was developed in response to a growing need for a balanced public policy that mitigates risk to honey bees, while minimizing the impact of that mitigation on production agriculture to prevent unintended consequences", added Goehring.

North Dakota's eight-page plan was devised after taking under consideration the information gathered at meetings of beekeepers, growers, pesticide applicators, crop consultants and others.