Contacts
Why this matters. Healthy soil is the foundation of everything—food, ecosystems, and climate resilience. Beekeepers across the country have noticed something powerful: land improves where bees forage. But it hasn’t been measured at scale—until now.
This project will help answer:
  • How do honeybees improve soil quality?
  • Does improved soil health create healthier bees?
  • How does soil influence nutrients in honey?
  • Does healthier soil produce more nutrient-rich honey?
How It Works
Select Two Sites on One Property
Zone A: This is the control zone where honeybees have not impacted the soil.

Zone B: The other zone will be an area where honeybees have had a positive impact on soil and diverse plant ecosystems through normal foraging.

  • This method shortens the gap between testing before and after honeybee impact.
Test Your Soil
In cooperation with the Cornell testing procedures, we will supply you with video instructions and a data sheet to record your findings. This should be complete by May 31, but the earlier in the year the better.

Note: The soil from both zones should be similar (loamy-no bee-support, loamy-bee-support, or sandy-no-bee support, and sandy-bee-support.

  • Matching soil types required
  • 10 subsamples per zone
  • Same environmental conditions
  • Deadline for soil: May 31
Send in wax, bees, and honey
Wax and bees will be sent in twice. We are testing for chemical components.
  • Deadline for first wax/bees: May 31
  • Deadline for second wax/bees: July 31

Honey will be submitted once. The honey sample should be your freshest batch of honey produced this year in the Zone B area. Grace time is allowed if you have not harvested honey by this point in the year, but please keep us posted. We are testing for nutritional, mineral, and medicinal properties.

Honey parameters:
  • ≤ 17% moisture
  • No heating
  • No heavy filtering
  • No adulteration
  • Deadline for honey: July 31
Submit your data
Clear instructions will be given to all approved participants for submitting samples to our partner labs.

Once you receive your data back, you will have access to an online portal to enter your data at RBA. We have support staff to help you as needed.

  • Deadline for final data entry: September 1, 2026.
This is the first national dataset connecting beekeeping to soil regeneration.
  • Publishable research
  • National mapping
  • Regenerative benchmarks
Apply to partcipate
Help answer a question that could reshape regenerative agriculture.
Can pollinators restore the land?
Apply to Participate
Join beekeepers in supporting regenerative agriculture.
Quickly apply to participate here.
Approved candidates will receive an email within one week to gather more information and set up a 15 minute zoom call.
Commitment to protocol
Made on
Tilda