..was present and accounted for in committee Ag. hearing today in Sacramento
for vote on Ag 771.. this would ban bees within 2 miles of production land
designated for the seedless Mandarin oranges in California.

There was an obvious bias by the Chairman of committee who believes that
growers have the right to plant whatever they want.  And at the end of the
session the plan had been to take a vote.

 I gave testimony in opposition of the bill on the merits that it would hurt the
California Beekeepers who depend on neighboring citrus orchards for
honey crop and forage after almond set.   

Was well armed with Joe Traynor's letter and Peter's comments, also letters
in opposition by Randy Oliver, Adrian Wenner and Serge Labesque.
 documenting that growers well understood issues of planting this variety 
proximal to existing precedent beekeepers use of citrus.  Gave some other comments
dollars lost in industry this year, Eric's view on nutrition and looking at
the big picture of honey bee health and U.S. dependency  for 
approx 15 million crop production..Called for additional fact finding at the beginning
and end of my presentation.

There were several beekeepers and representatives from 
Ca. State Beekeepers Assoc.  Some representation from
other citrus but obvious was lack of organization of opposition
both other citrus and beekeep industries. For what is worth, 
it was difficult to see large scale beekeeper one
after another pleading for their financial lives.
Siding with the beekeeping industry was Noelle Cremers of 
California Farm Bureau Federation.  

Her contact info is:(916) 446-4647
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

She is our best hope for negotiation with the growers at this point in
my estimation and she needs science to back her up .. she took
quite a barraging from Senator Florez,  

Senator Jeff Denan seemed to understand the absurdness of a property
owner having predominance over others by dictating bee exclusion
area.. by the way, when you do the math a 6 acre area 2 miles out 
each way is 8,000 acres, right? Multiply that times the growers that
are clammering to produce this variety for its economical potential
and that is whole lot of California.. also coming soon to a farm near
you,, seedless watermelon,, cantaloupe.. this is a "slippery slope"
 that is a lot of lost forage for Ca. beekeep in a time when bee health is already fragile in 
our industry and habitat for beekeepers' is limited by increased monoculture.
Interesting didn't even get to the point of how native pollinators would
be treated in this.. honey bees were labelled today as pests, native
pollinators can not be far behind.  

After more than 2 hours of deliberations,, the Chairman threw it back
on the author, Leno, if he wanted the committee to go to vote
since that was justified as had made all time requirements to committee
etc.. sensing the vote outcome may not favor his bill at this time ,he asked the
committee to reconvene in two weeks, July 3 for a vote only
no testimony will be taken, at least that is how it was left today.

Kathy







Kathy Kellison
[log in to unmask]
Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.

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