I have a very good customer in France.  His firm Ickowicz, Et Cie, is the #1
or #2 beekeeping supply company in France.  I shared with him that the
number of beekeepers in the US today is estimated to be no higher than 50%
of the levels 10 years ago, and that many supply houses are losing money and
some are going out of business.

His reply is below.  What is remarkable is that their equivalent of the ABF
is lobbying to ban all pesticides in beehives, and commercial beekeepers are
getting $1.80 a pound (3 Euro a kilo) for honey in barrels!

We (read, commercial beekeepers) in the US are so focused on pollination
(only made possible by our cheap gasoline) that they actually lobby
*for*pesticides.

Here are his comments:

 " Here i can say that it is the contrary.
of course many small beekeepers have stop, whose who have not treated varroa
or where the agriculture is too much industrial whith lot of pesticides, but
many people are interrested by beekeeping , on our web site we have every
days many new customers.

beekeepers association UNAF fight against pesticide and OGM ( genetic
modified ) .
they have call bees : sentry of environnement and they make many
manifestations
they contact the local and country administrations and they install hives on
their buildings in the town.

they explain that if bees desapear human are also threated ( Einstein  wrote
that when there will be no bees on the earth, human will have only few years
to live )
actually people in europe are very concerned by climat modification.
an other sign : a very important seller of plants and every thing for
garden, animals... named BOTANIC  has stop to sell pesticides, herbicides,
they have employed technic people to teach how make garden without chimical.
i have an order with 14 hives that will be installed in 7 BOTANIC shops to
show bees at people.

i think that all this is good for us.

for commercial beekeepers it is not bad .
prices of honey are correct, minimum 3 euro in drum and going to 7 euro for
our lavendel honey from Provence."

Something to think about.

Murray...do you have any thoughts?

-- 
Lloyd Spear
Owner Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacture of equipment for round comb honey sections,
Sundance Pollen Traps, and producer of Sundance custom labels.
Contact your dealer or www.RossRounds.com

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