The US Government has historically botched support for the pollination industry. Right now it is being supported by almond growers, bless their hearts, but if China and Australia get into almonds in a big way, that could change. Meanwhile, beekeepers in the East are clamoring for taxpayer's money to restock their dead hives. Maybe we should require them to chuck out all their combs as a precondition for pouring more of our money into their hives. After all, if the combs are causing the bees to croak, pretty dumb to restock the equipment! Those unfamiliar with history are condemned to repeat it:

In 1985, a report came out denouncing federal subsidies for beekeeping, which was justified on the basis of the need for pollination. The following are excerpts from that report.

Federal Price Support For Honey Should Be Phased Out

The beekeeping industry expanded during World War II to
meet the needs of the war economy. Honey was a substitute for
rationed sugar. Beeswax was considered a strategic material
because it could be used instead of petroleum products to waterproof
ammunition and other war equipment. For beeswax alone,
the industry was categorized as war-essential, which gave beekeepers
high priority to secure the scarce materials needed to
expand their capacity. with the end of the war and sugar
rationing, beekeepers found themselves faced with pricedepressing
honey surpluses. Due to the depressed economic situation,
representatives of the beekeeping industry asked the
Congress for assistance.

After World War II the price of honey
was so low that beekeepers were finding it impossible to recover
their production costs. Despite USDA purchases of more than 23
million pounds of honey in 1948 and early 1949 under USDA surplus
removal programs, the price of honey continued to drop.

The Congress provided assistance through the Agricultural
Act of 1949 (7 U.S.C. 1446(b)). The act expanded existing
price-support programs for basic commodities such as corn, cotton,
rice, tobacco, and wheat, and added honey as another agricultural
commodity to receive federal support. 

The principal reason that the honey price-support program was
enacted was to ensure that honeybees would be available in sufficient
numbers for crop pollination purposes. The program was to
be in effect until producers of crops requiring pollination could
pay for the pollination services.

The Congress should eliminate the mandatory program because:

The program is not needed to ensure necessary crop pollination,
since producers of crops that require honeybee
pollination are already renting or own their honeybees.
They view the cost as another cost of production, similar
to fertilizer, fuel, and labor.

Honey production is emphasized instead of crop pollination.
Since the program began, the honeybee population
has shifted to states where more honey can be produced
but where few crops are grown that require honeybee
pollination. Some of the top honey-producing states,
such as North and South Dakota, are major producers of
-sunflowers and the hay crops, such as alfalfa and the
clovers. These crops produce large numbers of flowers
that contain nectar attractive to honeybees. These
crops, however, do not require honeybee pollination.

The program, which was originally justified on the need to ensure an
adequate supply of honeybees for crop pollination purposes, is actually
unnecessary to ensure pollination. Producers of seed or fruit crops to
which bee pollination is essential pay for or supply their own honeybees
for this purpose. In addition, program management is not adequate to
prevent fraud or abuse, and improvements would be costly and may not
be completely effective.

A beekeeper who operates in five states said that the honey
price-support program did not affect pollination. It would not
take long, according to him, for part-time and hobbyist beekeepers
to take over the pollination services that commercial
beekeepers now provide. All almond producers would have to do
to ensure that their trees were adequately pollinated would be
to own and manage their own bees or hire someone to keep bees
for them.

In commenting on this report (see app. II), USDA stated
that the report was well prepared and that it agreed with our
conclusions that (1) the honey program is unnecessary to ensure
pollination, (2) it is a costly program and serves few
beekeepers, (3) program controls are not adequate, and (4) the
Congress should eliminate the mandatory honey price-support
program.

* * *

In subcommittee hearings in 1992,
a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) testified that
the Treasury costs of the honey program would fall below $10 million by
1995 and would remain below that level for the foreseeable future. As in
the late 1940s, an argument repeatedly made in defense of the honey program
was that without a support price for honey, beekeepers would fail and huge
costs would be borne by U.S. agriculture through adverse impacts on pollination
activities. An estimate of the value of pollination services that was
cited repeatedly was $9.3 billion, almost 60 percent of the gross value of
the crops that employ bees.

In October 1993, Congress denied appropriations for the honey program.
In June 1994, the General Accounting Office submitted an update of their
1985 report on the program to the House and Senate subcommittees. The
report concluded that "a price support for honey is not needed for ensuring
a supply of honeybees for pollination." Subsequently, the honey program
was eliminated under the 1996 Farm Bill.

* * *

PS: the beekeeping industry did not collapse in 1997. 

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