Ephrata, Wash., beekeeper Tim Hiatt carries jaws of honey Feb. 18 on the Capitol Campus in Olympia. He planned to present honey to lawmakers who sponsored a bill calling on the Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board to test planting pollen- and nectar-rich plants. The bill passed the House 96-1 and now goes to the Senate.

OLYMPIA — For the sake of honeybees, Washington may cautiously experiment with introducing pollen-rich plants on small pieces of private land, testing whether noxious weeds can be controlled without killing every blooming plant.

House Bill 2478, similar to legislation that stalled last year, would authorize the State Noxious Weed Control Board to supply landowners with bee-friendly plants or seeds.

Landowners would then see over several years whether forage for pollinators could supplant noxious weeds, reducing herbicide spraying that also eradicates plants that bees feed on.

“That’s been a source of frustration for many beekeepers, that often weed control is out of control and leaves nothing for the bees to forage,” said Ephrata commercial beekeeper Tim Hiatt, legislative chairman of the Washington State Beekeepers Association.

HB 2478 has been passed 96-1 by the House and has received a favorable reception from the Senate Agriculture Committee. The Washington Farm Bureau has indicated its support.

A more ambitious and expensive bee-forage bill last year would have directed the weed control board to work with state and federal land managers to replace noxious weeds with pollen- and nectar-rich plants.

The bill passed the House, but received 31 “no” votes and never came to a vote in the Senate. The bill encountered opposition from legislators concerned about the dangers of inadvertently introducing new invasive plants.

This year’s bill, introduced by Rep. Strom Peterson, D-Edmonds, focuses on working with private landowners on a modest scale.

The weed control board’s executive secretary, Alison Halpern, said that if the Senate passes the bill, she envisions about 100 landowners around the state supplanting noxious weeds with bee forage on one-tenth of an acre plots.

“I think it’s a great bill,” she said. “It allows us to do more outreach to landowners about long-term management, not just weed control.”

The bill also encourages state agencies to look at planting bee forage.

The bill does not dictate any changes in current weed-control efforts by landowners or counties. The state would spend an estimated $17,000 the first year on seeds, plants and printing up information about the pilot project.

A Washington State Department of Agriculture study group last year concluded that lack of forage was a prime reason for high bee mortality rates. Among 147 plants designated by the state as noxious weeks, at least 27 of them are good sources of bee nutrition, according to a legislative report.

The pilot project would have little immediate effect. One hundred landowners planting pollen-rich plants on one-tenth acre plots equals 10 acres.

“This project wouldn’t create acres and acres of forage for bees, but it would create, we hope, good guidelines for landowners to go forward if they’re interested in creating forage when they remove noxious weeds,” Hiatt said.