"Where beekeepers had a healthy hive and split it in the spring to become
nuclei for new hives, the beekeepers could then report the nuclei hives with
four frames or less as non-viable, eligible for the announced compensation
program for overwintering losses and a count in the dead hive category."

Clearly, the accusation is that beekeepers are defrauding the compensation
program. In Canada, the so-called "blasphemous libel" is a crime

* * *

Look, are you sure this didn't happen? Why would a farmer make something like this up? Perhaps it does happen on occasion. Beekeepers are not saints. Back in the 70s beekeepers got compensated for hives killed by pesticides. All you had to show was dead hives; so many committed fraud, the program was ended. 

When the government loaned money against honey, beekeepers did things like putting light honey on top of dark in the drums, to fool the agents into thinking they had a better grade of honey. The agents had to go to doing samples with pvc pipe to get to the "bottom of the barrel." 

Some beekeepers tried to use the same honey as collateral, more than once. The list goes on. Adulterated honey, bait and switch bees, phony pesticide kills, etc. 

Medhat has been warning about creating an adversarial relationship between beekeepers and farmers for years. Now the farmers are fighting back. If they exaggerate or pick an exceptional case, Oh My God! Guess who has been doing that all along.

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html