Randy said:
> So Jim, now that you've bitten the hand that's
> feeding us, what next?
I have a different take on that shopworn idiom.
Not feeding us, but feeding UPON us.
Parasites.
A varroa mite coming along for the ride should not be
credited with "helping" the forager collect nectar and pollen.
All the varroa mite does is slow the bee down, and weaken it.
In the case at hand, we were slowed down for 2 crucial months
when evidence was still fresh. All we really needed during
those 2 crucial months was some feet on the ground with liquid
nitrogen flasks to get some really useful samples, but no one
had the cash to pay for even that basic step. We still don't.
No money has even yet been allocated.
We were co-opted, and converted into foot soldiers in
an army that gives only lip service to honey bees,
who want to address general environmental issues, and are
perfectly willing to delay our need for quick funding in
order to leverage the attention CCD has gotten to their
own purposes.
Someone got sold a bill of goods, and was somehow influenced
to believe that at a time when honey bees are getting more
press coverage and more actual concern than ever before, we
needed to include some generic environmental concerns to
assure passage of any bill by both houses. (Hence my
coining of the phrase "Pollinator Protection Racket".)
> I hope that they realize that your personal vendetta doesn't
> necessarily reflect the views of informed beekeepers.
I'm not sure you are as well-informed as you think.
Read on, and see if you don't get a better perspective.
It is a tad long, but I want to inform, and the tale
is a twisty one.
What happened here was the equivalent of a hearing
before the Senate on "mad cow disease" inexplicably
being re-labeled "Food Ecosystems", and suddenly
including significant testimony by lobbyists smugly
suggesting that a solution to the problem was to eat
more lamb, and asking for legislation to increase
conservation easements for wild longhorn sheep.
No, not even sheep. Not obscure enough. Perhaps
muskrats and otters. Animals far removed from any
practical agricultural applications in all but the
minds of a very tiny number of people.
If you think that an incredulous reaction is unwarranted,
think of how the cattlemen would react. (Many of our
political problems are best understood by replacing
"beehives" with "cows" in the equation, and re-calculating
our expectations accordingly.)
"Informed" includes understanding the situation in terms of
larger contexts, and this is why I paint the vivid pictures
you call "a vendetta" merely because they are vivid.
I don't see why the oh-so-powerful and oh-so influential folks
that claimed to be helping us hadn't already gotten all the
legislation they needed prior to the appearance of CCD.
Could it be that they saw our problem as a vehicle to get
some attention for their own agenda? Regardless, they haven't
any new and unknown problems that required "emergency funding",
so why did they wait to make requests until OUR time of need,
rather than simply supporting the clear, simple language of
HR1709, which addresses CCD only? Could it be that they needed
our problems to get what they before had been unable to justify
"on the merits"?
> ...the impression that I get from speaking to those who actually know,
> is that most congresspeople don't have a clue about the bee industry's
> importance in agriculture, nor the problems we face.
"Don't have a clue"? Say what???
I don't agree at all, and I have more than second-hand
hearsay upon which to base my stance:
1) The Hastings bill (HR1709) was introduced in the House on
March 27, before the USDA CCD meetings took place. That
seems both clueful and pro-active.
2) At the start of the April USDA-ARS CCD meeting, we were
told up front by Kevin Hackett that the goal was to
develop points to be used in a command-performance
briefing for Senate staffers, so the Senate's interest
was also clueful and acute in April, if not before.
I think that this shows that our elected representatives had
a great deal of awareness MONTHS ago, and needed no prompting
to listen to our plight. They needed to only read the
newspapers to hear about the problem at issue.
They promptly requested justification for funding.
> We as an industry have very little clout in Washington.
> In reality, the native pollinator people hardly hopped
> onto our coattails--on the contrary, they have a funded lobbyist who
> has greatly aided the beekeeping industry!
Perhaps one of the reasons why we "lack clout" is that those who
claim to be "in the know" are ignorant and foolish enough to say
things like our elected representatives "DON'T HAVE A CLUE".
If I said that to or about a Senator or Congressperson, I'd
expect to be escorted to the street by security, and never
expect to get their ear again.
As for the "aid" of the lobbyist(s), if the Senate had promptly
introduced a true "companion bill" to HR1709, one that stayed
"on topic", I would agree it was "aid". But the Senate hearing
was neither "on topic" or prompt. Months were wasted. Why?
What delayed the Senate? In April, they were fully briefed.
The change in focus clearly indicates that they were lobbied.
Our elected representatives DO "have a clue", despite your
offhand dismissal, and as a result, they can smell "pork"
a mile away. I don't call someone piggybacking their own
agenda onto a simple funding request "help" at all - I
call that "hijacking". It puts the entire bill at risk
of being ridiculed by the first representative that wants
to give it a "Golden Fleece Award" and score some points
with his constituency as a "tight-fisted guardian of the
public purse strings".
> I just received a note from a major player in our
> industry on this issue...
Yes, the reality is that we now may have no choice but
to make nice noises, as even the "major players" were
apparently unable to keep the focus on honey bees.
> The staffers say that no one in the bee industry
> is talking to them.
So no one, not even the "major player" you cited has
contacted these staffers? That seems a strange sort
of "major player" to me.
I'm sure any number of beekeepers would have been happy
to speak at the hearings or sit down with staffers for
background sessions or merely sit in the audience if
the "major players" ever told anyone the dates and
times of the meetings/hearings in advance.
> Then I suggest that the beekeeping industry not stand with you.
> Instead, we should contact our representatives, and ask them to work
> hand in hand with the native pollinator people...
I agree!
What other choice do we have at this point but to
support the proposed legislation? We have to merely
hope that our simple "emergency funding request" is not
lost and forgotten among all the added environmental
conservation language!
But think for a moment - as a result of the delay, must
we now wait until one or more of us is hit by CCD to
use the money to gather samples from fresh cases?
You want us all to smile and shuffle, and hope that
SOMEONE ELSE is the one hit and maybe wiped out by CCD
this fall or next spring, so the money can be put to
good use on fresh cases of CCD?
Nope, I can't wish that upon anyone.
Not even you, even though it would teach you a lesson.
It may be that "science delayed" is "science denied"
in this trip on the merry-go-round. That would be
a bummer, wouldn't it?
> ...tooting their vainglorious horn...
For valuable information without any vanity or
horn-tooting at all, just go to "RandyOliver.com",
and pay $5 to read reprints of articles already
paid for by a magazine. Its a lot like Bee-L,
or a blog, but without the ego.
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