We just received the information below. Can you please pass this onto the
Florida State Beekeepers and tell them the deadline is tomorrow
afternoon? Since we have one Congressman, Allan Boyd, on the Agricultural
Appropriations Subcommittee and several on the House Appropriations
Committee —
C. W. Bill Young, Dave Weldon, and Ander Crenshaw — all three are
Republicans and carry a lot of weight. We have an urgent need for you ask
your Commissioner/Director/Secretary to help us get more funding for honey
bee research — research on the varroa mites.
Tomorrow, Friday, April 8, is the deadline for any Congressman to request
increased funding for USDA-ARS. The requests must be made by
close-of-business tomorrow.
All Congressmen, especially members of the House Agricultural
Appropriations Subcommittee and other members of the full House
Appropriations Committee need to request Rep. Henry Bonilla, chairman of
the Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee, to increase the funding for
the Agricultural Research Service by $7.3 million to a total of about $15
million.
Please ask your boss to make this contact call to all your state’s
delegation, especially any on the House Appropriations Committee— and call
your Congressman — and pass this message onto other beekeepers, packers,
and suppliers, asking them to make the same call. To reach any
Congressman’s Washington office, call 202-225-3121. You should talk to the
Legislative Aide who handles farming issues or the Legislative Director.
You can also contact most Congressional offices via www.house.gov.
Events in Florida:
On another note, representatives from the Florida State Beekeepers
Association and Florida Farm Bureau met with legislative aids and others in
Tallahassee during Farm Bureau Day, March 29, 2005. We are looking at
having the Florida legislature appropriate $300,00 in new funds for
research given the state and nation's crisis in reduction of honey bee
colonies for pollinating activities.
I sent the following thank you note out to those I met with:
Thank you for personally meeting with representatives of the Florida State
Beekeepers Association as part of Farm Bureau Day on March 29, 2005.
The situation with respect to the death of thousands of colonies across the
U.S. continues. This article, which details the situation, appeared in the
Palm Beach Post :
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2005/03/28/m1a_honeybees_0328.html
I also have posted the fact sheet that we distributed should you require
more copies:
http://home.earthlink.net/~beeactor/fsba/pdf/fact_sheet.pdf
To reiterate, in order to have bees available for pollination in Florida in
the foreseeable future, the appropriation of funds from the Florida
legislature to a fund administered by the Department of Agriculture's
Division of Plant Industry for emergency bee research is greatly needed at
this time. Again, thanks for your time and interest.
Dr. Malcolm Sanford
Let's keep banging this drum; you may see a special on NBC news in the next
few days on this; stay tuned.
Malcolm T. Sanford
Executive Secretary Florida State Beekeepers Association
http://floridabeekeepers.org
Subscribe to the Association's electronic mailing list at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/F_S_B_A/
and Doc Bullard's all about Florida beekeeping at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FloridaBeekeepers/
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