The American Beekeeping Federation with President Dan Winter (S6, E15)

S6, E15 - The American Beekeeping Federation with President Dan Winter

John Benham: Hi, I'm John Benham, EAS Master Beekeeper from Kentucky. This is Beekeeping Today Podcast.

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Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment presented by Betterbee. I'm Jeff Ott.

Kim Flottum: I'm Kim Flottum.

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Jeff: Thank you, Sherry. A quick shout out to all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on our website. There you can read up on all our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 200 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each show, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com.

Hey, thanks John for that opening. You know folks, you too can help open the podcast by sending your greeting to us here, just like John did. Of course, if you see me at any fall show such as the upcoming Washington State Beekeepers Association meeting, you can ask me, and I will record you right there on the spot. It's fun and less painful than a sting to the finger to do so. [laughs] I hope so. Anyways, hey, welcome back to another episode of Beekeeping Today podcast. Whether you're wrapping up your first season with a single hive or an experienced beekeeper managing multiple apiaries, we're delighted you've chosen to join us.

We strive to be your go-to platform for in-depth explorations and bee biology, honey markets, and so much more. As we like to say, Beekeeping Today podcast, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. Make sure you subscribe, like, and/or follow today on your listening platform, or choice, or platforms of choice. It does help other beekeepers find this quicker. Today's episode features a special guest, Dan Winter, the current president of the American Beekeeping Federation or ABF. Before we get into Kim's and my conversation with Dan, let's talk about two pivotal organizations shaping the American beekeeping industry, the ABF, and the American Honey Producers Association or AHPA.

Now, you may ask, why should you as a beekeeper be interested in either of these organizations? Both entities offer indispensable advocacy for beekeepers of all sizes and numbers of hives, but does so with a unique focus. The ABF takes a more comprehensive approach addressing educational programs, research, and legislation that impacts beekeepers at the state level or even nationwide. For those interested in science-backed beekeeping practices, conservation efforts, and intricacies of policy, ABF is an essential resource. Nationally, ABF actively monitors the USDA Farm Bill advocating for policies that benefit beekeepers and their buzzing charges alike.

The AHPA, meanwhile, zeros in on the interest of honey producers. If you're keen on the commercial aspects of beekeeping, such as navigating market trends, honey labeling standards, and the such, the American Honey Producers is your go-to source. The AHPA is also particularly focused on legislative issues such as the US Farm Bill and the Honey Identification Verification and Enforcement Act, otherwise known as the HIVE Act, which aims to support honey producers specifically. We'll be talking with Chris Hiatt, the current president of AHPA in an upcoming October episode.

Both organizations offer invaluable resources, including newsletters, webinars, and annual conferences, opportunities that I highly recommend taking advantage of. Membership in either group also means contributing to larger missions like conservation, scientific research, and legislative advocacy. In a world where information and community support are key to successful beekeeping, both the ABF and AHPA offer unique and complementary strengths.

Whether you're a novice beekeeper looking for educational resources or a veteran seeking to influence industry policy, these organizations provide the tools, knowledge, and network to help you succeed. Stick around as we dive into our conversation with Dan Winter to learn more about what the ABF is doing right now to support beekeepers like you. You won't want to miss it, but first, a quick word from our friends at Strong Microbials.

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Jeff: While you're at the strong microbial site, make sure you click on and subscribe to the HIVE, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. Sitting across the virtual Beekeeping Today podcast table, I have the pleasure of having Dan Winter here from the American Beekeeping Federation. Dan, welcome to the show.

Dan Winter: Thank you very much for inviting me. I appreciate the invitation.

Kim: Good seeing you again, Dan.

Jeff: We've invited you to talk about American Beekeeping Federation. I'll admit to you right up front, I have a fondness in my heart for American Beekeeping Federation because it was at the 50th anniversary Beekeeping Federation meeting in Kansas City in '93, that I went to the meeting with Kim and I met my wife. Not only did I learn a lot about beekeeping, I fell in love. I like the American Beekeeping Federation. [laughs] It's changed my life.

Dan: I think we're overall a pretty good, well-rounded organization. We try to represent all aspects of beekeeping, the hobbyist, the sideliner, and the commercial beekeepers. We do a ton of work in Washington, DC. We have a lobbyist there, Fran Boyd from Myers & Associates. He keeps us up on all the legislation that's going on nationwide. We tend to send letters to different states when they have legislation that affect pollinators.

We recently sent a letter of support to New York State for the Birds and Bees Protection Act. We try to work with Fran on things like that, and it really keeps us up on what's going on. We try to bring all that back to our members, so they understand where they can help us out and where they can help both managed pollinators and native pollinators.

Kim: If I'm a lone beekeeper in wherever state, Ohio or something, or I'm an association, maybe a state or county level association, and suddenly I got a problem that I didn't ask for and I've got people telling me I can't do this anymore, we can't do this anymore, don't do that anymore, and I'm looking at 12 hobby beekeepers out here, or maybe 20. Can a group like that approach you and say, "Here's our problem. What would you advise us to do? What can you help us to do?"

Dan: Certainly Kim, anytime we can give advice or try to point people in the right direction, all of our contact information is at abfnet.org, our website. Do you know my personal cell phone number's on there, maybe it shouldn't be, [laughter] but people are more than welcome to give me a call. If I can certainly point them in the right direction, I will. I'm a past president of the Empire State Honey Producers Association in New York State.

I've actually worked with several small groups that had trouble with local county variances that made it so that beekeeping was difficult in their area. We reached out to our state agriculturist in Albany and turned some of those right to farm Acts, actually worked in our beekeepers favor. Some of that actually worked out well with some beekeepers in New York. If I can certainly help point people in the right direction, do it to solve a problem, I certainly will.

Kim: Would it cost my group anything to, I'm not going to say hire you, but to draw on your experience?

Dan: We try to do all we can do for members. The American Beekeeping Federation, we have the State Delegates Committee, which is run by Debbie Seib from Indiana. Debbie's excellent. She's very well-rounded and thorough. We have state delegates actually representing all 50 states now. A lot of times, if people in states don't know who to contact or who to talk to, sometimes we just can put those in contact with their state delegate to the American Beekeeping Federation. In some cases, that works out pretty good.

Kim: That's a good thing to know. I know that the Federation has its fingers in a lot of different kinds of pies. I'm going to go back to your experience though, the operation you have. Just give me a picture of who you are and where you came from.

Dan: My great-grandfather had bees commercially, and my grandfather didn't want anything to do with them. My father, he took an interest in bees in the early '60s. I am officially a second-generation commercial beekeeper from upstate New York. I'm up between Rochester and Syracuse, New York, just north of Cornell University, which I try to do a lot of work with Dr. Scott McArt there and try to help Cornell all I can. We run about 2,500 hives of bees. I take those hives to Florida in the wintertime. The best hives end up all the way out in California. Then as circle comes back around, we pollinate apples in the spring in New York state.

I'm a commercial beekeeper. I am currently on the New York State Apiary Industry Advisory Committee, which I help AG and Markets on different laws and things that affect beekeepers. We recently worked on a registration act here in New York State, which was passed here in New York, where beekeepers have to register now. We also worked on some bear legislation with some black bear problems people have and things like that. I am past president of the Empire State Honey Producers here in New York and I'm current president of the American Beekeeping Federation. I'm also on the National Honey Board, so I try to keep busy all the way around.

Kim: I guess so, gee.

Jeff: When do you work your bees? [laughter]

Dan: We took 3,000, 4,000 pounds off this morning.

Jeff: Oh, very good. Glad you had an excuse to get away and take a break for a moment.

Dan: Yes.

Kim: It also sounds like almost anything that goes on in the beekeeping industry by who, for who, when for, it's going to touch some part of your operation.

Dan: I try to keep current on things. Kim, it's hard. There's so much stuff going on that people don't see. When you get involved in beekeeping, so many people want to get involved in beekeeping to help out the bees. When I try to tell those people, join a local group so you get that networking, you get those friends nearby that can maybe help you out or give you advice. Then I tell those same people to join a state organization or EAS, HAS, WAS, one of the bigger apicultural societies. There you can get a broader, farmer education. Then if you really want to step up and help out, if you really want to help out pollinators, join a national organization like the American Beekeeping Federation.

We work tirelessly. We do hire a lobbyist in Washington, and we try to make sure that all aspects of beekeeping are represented in Washington. That's tough. Smaller beekeepers, all the time they ask, "Well, why would I do that?" That's because we work in Washington to make sure that trucking laws are good for beekeepers, things like that. Almost everybody buys nucs or packages, and the America Beekeeping Federation works on laws that involve agricultural shipments of things like that. It's important to be a member and just be aware of what's going on with a group like the ABF.

More currently and recently, I was asked to testify in front of Agri Canada, involving the United States would like to ship packages northward into Canada to help with problems that Canadians have been having with high winter mortality rates. The American Beekeeping Federation has really taken a strong stance on that to try to help beekeepers in the United States with possible exporting packages into Canada. In doing so, Canada actually takes packages from some areas of the world that are fairly close to the new mite, which is the Tropilaelaps mite, and I know you guys have heard of it.

Certainly, if this had discussions around it, we're very concerned with what would happen to the beekeeping industry, commercial pollination, commercial seed crop pollination in North America, if the Tropilaelaps mite is to enter through Canada or through the United States. We're trying to work with our neighbors to make sure that our industry is a little more secure. Those are the types of things we do to try to better the industry and to help keep our managed pollinators safe.

Jeff: Those proactive measures are very important. Even as of the day of this recording this morning, the big media buzz, forgive the pun, is the yellow-legged hornet that's shown up in Georgia that's become the murder hornet of 2023. It's causing a lot of angst and shows the vulnerability of invasive species to the United States. We're not immune.

Dan: No, not at all. When we go to Washington and we visit those 30 or 40 representatives too, I remember we were in a representative from Hawaii's office, and I expressed my concern about these bee-killing hornets, if you will, from Asia and areas like that. If they were to get into Hawaii, how detrimental they would be on the queen-rearing industries.

At certain times of the year, it would make it certainly difficult to get queens from those areas if they get a pest like that in Hawaii.

We try to raise awareness of these types of things to the United States government, as well as parliament and things in Canada to make sure that they're very aware and draw the same concern we do for our industry.

Kim: Looking at that big picture, no, I'm not even guessing, I know that your group, along with several other groups in the states join forces on occasion. Rather than you just banging ahead on some senator's door, you've got many groups right out there with you, so you've got a good representation. Just a quick overview, can you give me some of the groups that are helping you and the problems that you're trying to solve?

Dan: The American Honey producers, they took the range and they went on with an antidumping lawsuit, which affects imported honey into the United States. Several of the American Beekeeping Federation members donated on that, but we didn't actually get involved in that quite like they did. They work on a lot of things as well as we do. We get together all the time to discuss how we want things to proceed forward. This year, we actually discussed a $9 million increase for the agricultural research station funding. Of course, we were denied because the government tells us there's no money there.

We currently get $3 million for people who don't understand. That funds all of our nationwide labs. I think there's, now I could be wrong on this. There's about 13 labs or a few more that do honeybee-related research in the United States. Of course, many people understand that the Beltsville lab is an ARS lab, and of course, that's all funded through the Farm Bill. On years like this, the American Honey Producers and the American Beekeeping Federation, we take a joint stance on what we ask for when we go to these representatives in Washington to make sure we're all on the same page.

The one thing we don't want to do is start to push for legislation and things like that, that we're not all in agreeance on because we don't want to go in there and try to get things that are unattainable and things like that. There are certain things we really need to have, and that ARS lab funding is one of them. This year, we both took a joint stance on a $9 million increase, and then when we got to appropriations, of course, they laughed us off.

It's worth a shot. We don't usually go in there and ask for money, but with the Tropilaelaps mite on the horizon, we were shooting for some money to try to get some better research coming out of Asia. Maybe get some of our guys over there looking at it, some of our scientists, and try to be prepared for this, be proactive rather than reactive. Maybe we can help hold this off for a little while.

Kim: You mentioned USDA and the Farm Bill, I'm guessing that the Farm Bill is probably pretty important to you guys. Not all of your funding, certainly, but a lot of your funding comes through some government agency. When you are looking at down the road a bit, the next Farm Bill, when do you start talking to other people in our industry and say, "Okay, what do you need in the Farm Bill? Here's what we need, here's what you need. What will we settle for?" Is that right?

Dan: Pretty much, Kim, we're doing this straight for beekeepers. The American Beekeeping Federation doesn't get anything really from this. This is all for beekeepers. We're a volunteer organization. We don't have any paid management companies. We're all volunteers here. I travel on my own money to Washington. I think that's important to know that if, say, I'm very familiar with New York State, so I'm going to cite New York more than anything. When the state bee inspector comes in and he takes a sample from my hives, he's going to send that off to Beltsville, Maryland to get analyzed. The funding for that lab in Beltsville comes from that $3 million, it's appropriated in the Farm Bill. That's what a lot of people don't understand is where that type of money comes from. These states push to have this funding.

As of the last few Farm Bills, we've been able to sustain just that $3 million. This is one of the first year we've actually gone in and asked for an increase. That's where hobbyists and your smaller-scale beekeepers might not understand why it's important to join an organization like the American Beekeeping Federation.

Because if a sample is taken from their hive of bees and their state sends that on to Beltsville, it's organizations like ours that are ensuring that we work with USDA, and the APHIS division, and things like that to make sure that some of the funding is appropriated for us. That's really hard, and that's why being a member of the American Beekeeping Federation is so important.

Kim: Let's take this quick break to hear from one of our sponsors. We'll be right back.

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Kim: That's work that you guys are involved with, I say this carefully, trying to influence government officials to see things your way. [laughter] You also work with other groups within the industry that may be looking at the same thing, or may be looking at something totally different from the government, or looking at it at university level or state association levels, that sort of thing. Does any of that come up?

Dan: The American Beekeeping Federation, we have a sister organization called The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees. We do 4-H Essay Contest every year. The foundation works great with research, and doctors, and things like that to make sure that when we do fund small things like research, that the money's going in the right direction. Our members' money is being used where the beekeepers would like to see the research being done, things like that. We also have the American Honey Queen and the American Honey Princess. Those girls, they work tirelessly.

They go around the country, they work with different state organizations to educate school-age kids and beekeepers all over. What they do for awareness of the bee industry is phenomenal. I don't think I could do what those ladies do every single day. They do an outstanding job. We work with the National Honey Board on things like imported honey and issues like that. Most of what we work on is, of course, available at the the abfnet.org website. We do a ton of different work. We worked with Congressman Armstrong from North Dakota who put out the HIVE Act, which this is the newest piece of legislation we helped work on.

It's the Honey Integrity Verification and Enforcement Act. Now, what that's going to do is that's going to force the FDA to establish a standard of identity for honey, which in my opinion is one thing, it's been sorely lacking in our industry. I would certainly love to see a standard of identity coming around because in today's day and age, there's many different manufactured honeys that don't use bees. If they were allowed to use the word honey, it would drastically affect everybody's price when they go to sell their honey.

Jeff: When you state identity for honey, you're talking about a legal definition of what can be called honey so that we don't have the biologically derived honeys from a test tube.

Dan: That's exactly it. What we'd like to do is we'd like the government to establish that because we found when a few states tried to do it state to state, I know Florida had a standard for a while, and some of the beekeepers were actually getting sued because their honey didn't have the right sugars to fall into a certain category. What we don't want is to get beekeepers in a legal battle really that can't be won.

That's what we don't want. We'd really like to see the federal government establish a standard and work toward that standard. Then every state can work toward the federal standard, which would be much, much better than every state. It would be like trucking laws. Every state would have different laws. [laughs] It just gets too complicated.

Jeff: I think that an example of how it can get off track from a beekeeper standpoint is if you were to look at the use of the term milk. I may be speaking out of term here, anybody, correct me if I'm wrong, but if the dairy industry had gotten on top of that when the coconut people, and the almond people, and the hazelnut people, and everybody else started calling their juice extract or whatever they call it, milk, and protected that term, they wouldn't be in the situation they're in now, I would believe.

Dan: Milk does have a standard of identity. That's where it gets blurry. There's a lot of lawsuits going on right now, and it's costing the dairy producers a lot of money to try to fight these people using the word milk. What we really want to avoid is we want a good standard of identity now. Like the dairy people, at least we do have something later to fall back on if that happens to come down to it.

Rarely will it get as far as the dairy industry has gotten with that. If a manufactured honey could be used in a confectioner's market, like say, I'm going to use a name like General Mills' Honey Nut Cheerios. If they use a manufactured honey and call it honey, then they wouldn't have to purchase honey anymore for their product. They could still use the same names and it would be very misleading to the consumer. That's what we want to avoid.

Kim: All right. What can I do to help? [laughter]

Dan: I tell people all the time, just join the American Beekeeping Federation every little bit. If you want to get involved, then talk to somebody on the board of directors. All of our contact information is at abfnet.org. We're having a big conference in January down in New Orleans. It's all on our website, January 9th. Come on down to New Orleans and hang out with us. Meet some of the larger beekeepers. Everybody that comes to these meetings is pretty down to earth.

Everyone on our board of directors and most of the people that come to these meetings are very passionate about pollinators. If you only have one or two hives, don't be intimidated by the guy with 50,000. Walk right up to him and start talking to him, shake his hand because really the commercial industry is not that much different than the hobbyist industry. We just do things. We just do a lot more of it.

Jeff: All of these conferences, no matter which conference you can go to, and I'm fond of the American Beekeeping Federation conference, the real meeting happens in the hallways, and at breakfast, and at lunch. Then it's sweetened, if you will, with the additional meetings and then trade show, but the real meeting happens in the hallways, and that's really fun.

Dan: I like to see the new products and stuff, like you said, at the trade show. There's some new mite treatments coming around now, they're going to be great to hear. There's talk of some viruses in the Varroa mites that we might be able to use to reintroduce into the hives as a live virus. Maybe we don't have to put these soft chemicals into our bees. There's a lot of good things that come out of those large meetings and everybody can learn something. If you own 80,000 hives or you own one hive, you're going to learn something there. There's a ton of things a lot of scientists do. There's a lot of good people that'll stand back and talk to you.

Jeff: The conference is January 9th to the 12th in New Orleans.

Kim: There's something else that you guys are involved in that has piqued my interest over the last couple of years. I don't want to call them industry, that's the group of people who look at bees that are managed, and the group of people who are looking at the bees that aren't managed, and where they start bumping heads. Can you make it so that both of them exist?

Dan: There's so much conflict between native and managed pollinators. What I try to reinforce every time I talk, whether I talk in Washington or I talk to you, Jeff and Kim, is what's good for native pollinators is good for managed pollinators, and what's good for managed pollinators is good for native pollinators. The last conference I was at, the last American Beekeeping Federation conference last January in Jacksonville, Florida, I was talking to Dr. Diana Cox-Foster. They've actually found a fossilized species of Apis in the United States. Are we really invasive or are we actually native? There's a lot of questions that still need to be answered, and there's some good scientists working on that kind of stuff. We need more science. The American Beekeeping Federation likes to follow the science. The more we have, the better. If there's actually a conflict, let's figure it out. Let's figure out where it is and try to work together on things. I think there's a lot of good science out there.

Kim: There is, no doubt about it. All of us wish there were more, but [coughs] I got one last question here on where I've been going with all of this. There is a program called NP305. We've had a couple of people learn here over the last month or so that have mentioned that and explained it. I'm going to bet that you know as much or more about it than they did, and you can explain it so everybody knows more.

Dan: The NP305s, when we work with USDA and the ARS labs, and try to figure out where research is needed most, we certainly do pull beekeepers in things, to pull them in to see what people need most. Several of the things that come up, of course, are the Canadian border thing. Tropilaelaps mite's huge right now. It's on every commercial guy's mind. It's certainly going to be a huge problem. The Tropilaelaps mite breeds about three times faster than Varroa mites. We'll always be treating for Varroa mites or for Tropilaelaps mite and not necessarily be able to produce honey quite like we usually do here in the United States.

It'll drastically hurt our domestic honey production. We know countries like Pakistan are being devastated by it. There's huge problems. Directing research money and research funding is very important. The problem is, again, we go there and we ask for increases, and we never get any more money. When we go on the Farm Bill, we really need to push some of our local senators, and congressmen, and representatives to try to appropriate more money toward this type of research because the money's just not there. When we asked for a $9 million increase, that was specifically for research.

We're not asking for it any other way. We want this money to go toward the projects that people see most important. Habitat, of course, nutrition for honey bees is always a big one, new miticides. We need more resources in our toolbox to help fight Varroa mite. The ARS lab in Baton Rouge is finding Varroa mite to be up to 30% resistant now to amitraz and a few of the other chemicals that we're using. This research on new miticides and softer chemicals is very, very important.

Kim: We've covered about 400 square miles of beekeeping information here with the help of the American Beekeeping Federation. I know I haven't asked every question, or any of the questions I wanted, or some of the questions I wanted to, but what haven't we asked that you think is important to the people listening to this today?

Dan: I think the biggest question that beekeepers in general of all levels need to ask themselves is why they got involved in beekeeping. If they got involved in beekeeping because they didn't see any bees in their flowers or their gardens weren't getting pollinated enough, if you got involved to help beekeeping, join those three organizations. Join a small organization, join a medium-sized organization like a state organization, and then join the American Beekeeping Federation because those three groups are where you're going to get most of your knowledge and most of your information from.

If you join your local groups, as you guys know, local information is the best when you're trying to work your hives or bees. Sometimes you have to be careful where you get your information from because it's just not pertinent to where you're trying to keep your bees alive. I ask people, why did you get involved in beekeeping? If you want to help for probably $150, you can join all three of those groups, it's not a lot of money, and be represented and also have lots of information right there at your fingertips. Our website is a wealth of information for members.

Like I said before, the State Delegates Committee, they've got somebody right there in your state that might be able to help point you in the right direction if you have problems. We also have a membership directory. I carry it everywhere I go. If I'm hauling a truckload of bees from Florida to New York and I break down, I pull out the American Beekeeping Federation membership directory, and I see who's close to me [chuckles].

Because I might need to unload some bees someplace, and it's nice to have the inner workings with a group that large. There's a lot of reasons to be a member of groups, and the main thing is to ensure future beekeepers on down the road or our kids understand how important pollination is, and to make sure that all the bases are covered as to why you got involved in beekeeping.

Kim: Well said, Dan.

Jeff: I do want to follow up with one question for you, Dan. That's back to the conference, and that's the honey show. For me, the honey show was always really a spectacular part of the conference because of the wide variety of honeys, and the displays, and the care at which the beekeepers put together their entries.

Dan: Oh, absolutely. Jeff, we have the National Honey Show. It's probably one of the more prestigious honey shows in the nation. Certainly don't be afraid to enter it. Try it out, and see how you do. Three jars of honey, and you can see how you hold up nationally. We've got some of the best judges in the business. We make sure that everybody's just looked at equally. When you bring your jars of honey into our honey show, you're not a name anymore, you're a number.

Nobody can be biased or nobody can say, "Oh, well so-and-so's friend won." It's truly a neutral playing field when you enter. It's really great to see people win those type of awards because any kind of national award is very prestigious. We really take a lot of pride in our honey show. We would love to see a bunch more entries.

Jeff: It's not just liquid honey, you do comb honey and cut comb honey, you do chunk honey, and you also do the waxes. It's really a full wide spectrum of bee products. I encourage anybody who's going to the American Beekeeping Federation, you make sure you go to the honey displays and enter. Dan, it's been really good having you on the show. We look forward to having you back next year and find out what's latest, and greatest, and anything else that we need to be aware of.

Dan: Certainly, Jeff, Kim, anytime the American Beekeeping Federation can help you or come on your show and certainly talk to you about certain things, don't be afraid to reach out and contact me personally. I'll make sure I address it myself. I look forward to seeing everybody in New Orleans. I really hope more people come down because the food is outstanding. Our social event's going to be at the House of Blues this year.

It's going to be a good time had by all. We're walking distance from the French Quarter. The street music is bound to be good. Come join other beekeepers and learn how it's done all around the world. It will definitely be people internationally coming and represented there as well.

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Jeff: Thanks again, Dan.

Kim: It's good talking to you, Dan. Thanks for all the information.

Dan: Thank you, Jeff and Kim for inviting us over here. We certainly appreciate your time.

Jeff: I started off when we talked with Dan about my first trip to American Beekeeping Federation was with you, and I remember sitting in the airplane, I think it was 7:27. Don't ask me why I remember that, but it was, and ended up in Kansas City, American Beekeeping Federation conferences. Good memories for me.

Kim: They do a good job. Other groups out there also do good jobs, and we're going to be talking to them over the next few weeks and months, but Dan did a good job of representing ABF. He didn't have anything to hide, he didn't have anything to dance around. You asked him a question, he gave you the right answer, and we need more of those.

Jeff: Absolutely. I understand and I appreciate for many folks, just tell me about how to manage bees, how to work with bees, and that focus, that is absolutely needed for beekeepers. As Dan pointed out, it is really important for bees and beekeepers to have a presence in government affairs in Washington or state governments to make sure our interest as beekeepers are also protected and accounted for, whether it'd be through research, which develops more tools for beekeepers to actually manage their bees with, or whether it'd be legislation actions to make sure that the habitats are preserved, that type of thing, and pesticides.

It's grunt work and I'm glad there's people like Dan, who want to make sure it's happening for beekeepers.

Kim: The beekeeping industry needs people who know what's going on on both sides of the aisle in all state capitals and the national capitals so that if it's going to happen to us, we'll have some kind of warning. If it's going to be good for us and we can chase it, we'll have some kind of warning. What they're doing is good, all of them.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any webpage.

We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and especially, Betterbee for their longtime support of this podcast. Thanks to Northern Bee Books for their generous support. Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Beekeeping Today podcast listener for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions or comments at leave a comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:40:28] [END OF AUDIO]