This thread illustrates the problem.  Some folks are putting quite a bit
of time into the exchange. We're preaching to the choir.  In the US, we
should be directing our comments to our legislatures, State and Federal,
and to the USDA.
 
Until I was roped into helping with a small family apiary, I thought the
honey subsidy was a terrible misuse of Federal funds, however few.  Now I
know better and take every opportunity to let my Rep know why.  Because we
are really small potatoes and sell everything we produce retail, thank
you, I emphasize support of bees as pollinators which justifies anything
that can be done to keep beekeepers, large and small, in business and
thriving.  I also point out that the costs of keeping healthy hives has
skyrocketed.
 
There are local beekeeping clubs all over the place.  We have some pretty
decent writers enrolled here on this list.  It appears to me the resources
are in place to organize a demand that funds be returned to the industry,
that the allowable restrictions on imports be enforced, and that funds be
put back into research on parasites, adulterants in imported product, etc.
 
As for the milk industry: we should infiltrate it to see how, in an amply
supplied market, they can sustain the prices they do and how, given the
same glut, they managed to get the production inducing, cow destroying
hormone approved.
 
 
 
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