Peter Dillon is absolutely right. In the US in this example, the squeaky
wheel gets greased.  In order to be heard, the squeaky wheel has to be
squeaky all the time but on point.

The Internet makes this easy to do.

1) A group, this case, domestic bee-keepers must be informed about
legislative and regulatory issues which will affect them;

2) Members of the group must know how to contact their own Congressional
delegation, their State legislators; the appropriate people in the
Extension service in their state; House and Senate Committee members
and chairs, and staff people for their own State and Federal delegations.
That may sound daunting, but it really isn't.  Every part of the Federal
Government has a web-site; every member of Congress has one and some have
email addresses separate from their web sites.  Many Committees have web
pages and the means by which you can address your concerns directly to the
Committees.  If you can't reach both the chair and ranking minority leader
of a committee, you can always use their web site mail routines.  Many of
those exclude addresses not within their state: there is always a valid
address for their own offices in the state. (I always provide my real
address in the body of my letters and explain that I'm writing to them as
members of an important committee.)

Most mail programs provide the means to segregate addresses in folders. It
saves a lot of time to do that as you accumulate addresses.  The same
thing is true with your browser.  Make a folder for political contacts
and save the "contact" or "Mail to" page for each contact.  It will
save time in the long run because you start on that page rather than
the home page.  You can usually get staff email addresses if you ask.
Most Congressional offices divide the work and assign "specialists." It is
often more important to contact the staff specialist than the Congress
critter, although there is nothing quite so satisfying as to get a
response from the Legislator directly written while they're stuck in the
airport somewhere.

I've been told, that organized email is less effective than individual
email unless the organized email reaches some magical number of pieces
(usually a very large number).  For that reason, your own style and voice
are important.  The facts, however, should be solid.  Shorter is better.
However, if the issue is complex, make sure you use enough space to fill
in the blanks.  A newspaper format is useful: the first paragraph should
describe the issue and your conclusion or request.  Then go over it in
more detail point by point.  If you have references, by all means include
them.  If they exist, urls (http: addresses) make staff happy.  If they
don't then Title and author of books, journals (include dates), or
newspaper and magazine articles.  Even citations of some email articles
can be useful.

Once you have your basic letter, it's a simple matter to copy/paste just
enough to make each one specific to its recipient.

We have folks on this list who keep track of issues that the rest of us
might not otherwise hear about.  I they would gently hint that letters are
needed and to provide the facts or where the facts can be found, the rest
of us can provide letters from all over the country.  You'll be amazed at
how effective it is to have your Senator or Congressman go to a Committee
member to advocate on your issue and to have the Committee member aware of
the issue.  If you can help the staff by doing some of the leg work for
them... you'll be well loved.

Post 9-11 in the US, snail mail to Washington DC is still slowed by
testing and close examination at the Post Office.  Send snail mail to your
legislator's local office.  Email gained some attention and validity
because it got through when snail mail didn't.  Staff likes email better
than snail mail because they can distribute it quickly and because it is
easy for them to track down embedded links to references you provide.

I promise to be squeaky whenever I can.  If all of us do, we might well
get the industry some needed attention.

---------------
Richard Yarnell, SHAMBLES WORKSHOPS | No gimmick we try, no "scientific"
Beavercreek, OR. Makers of fine     | fix we attempt, will save our planet
Wooden Canoes, The Stack(R) urban   | until we reduce the population. Let's
composter, Raw Honey                | leave our kids a decent place to live.