inspectors
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What NY "requires" verys from year to year. By law the Commissioner of Agriculture can authorize the inspection of colonies within the state of NY by his Deputys, the Apiary Inspectors.
Out in the Rochester area, this would have ben Kevin O'Donnell, last sason.
Depending on how many people are employed to do Apiary Inspections on 2006, you may not have anyone in your area to do inspections.
Unless you want a job? You'd have to get rid of your bees, though.
Out in the Rochester area, this would have ben Kevin O'Donnell, last sason.
Depending on how many people are employed to do Apiary Inspections on 2006, you may not have anyone in your area to do inspections.
Unless you want a job? You'd have to get rid of your bees, though.
Does this mean that in the state of New York you can not be an inspector if you are a beekeeper? Do they consider this a conflict of interest? To me this is like saying that you can't be a state game warden/protector if you hunt. Doesn't make sense to me.
"To me this is like saying that you can't be a state game warden/protector if you hunt. Doesn't make sense to me."
I don't even see the paralell here. I don't see where a game warden that hunts is a problem, unless he is trespassing on private land to do it, which is way outside his duties, and would be treated the same as a normal tresspasser.
When you have an inspector who is in the business of making honey, raising queens, or selling hives/nucs there is a big problem. If such a feller came into your yard, told you to destroy all your hives because you have AFB, and then offer to sell you all new ones.....or while inspecting your hives he crushes a few queens and offers to sell replacements....or he goes to the landowner where your best yard is located and offers to pay more rent than you.....no conflict.....hmmmmmmmmm......
I don't even see the paralell here. I don't see where a game warden that hunts is a problem, unless he is trespassing on private land to do it, which is way outside his duties, and would be treated the same as a normal tresspasser.
When you have an inspector who is in the business of making honey, raising queens, or selling hives/nucs there is a big problem. If such a feller came into your yard, told you to destroy all your hives because you have AFB, and then offer to sell you all new ones.....or while inspecting your hives he crushes a few queens and offers to sell replacements....or he goes to the landowner where your best yard is located and offers to pay more rent than you.....no conflict.....hmmmmmmmmm......
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Now peggjam, certainly that would be a conflict of interest.
And the Department and I have been aware of all of the Inspectors who own bees, including myself.
It has been an accepted C o' I for ages. Perhaps many beekeepers don't like it, but no one else wanted to do the job, except beekeepers. Or people who once they became Inspectors built bee businesses to feed their families through the lean times of unemployment or no program.
Many people have said to me, "Oh, I thought that the program was dead." And it almost was.
After the letter coming later this week we will see how many people will be eligable. If the letter says, "If you own bees, you can't be an Inspector.", you will see quite a few fewer Inspectors or some of us will have to sell our bees. I'd rather not. But, my wife and I will make that decision in regards to what's best for us. Either way, some changes are coming.
And the Department and I have been aware of all of the Inspectors who own bees, including myself.
It has been an accepted C o' I for ages. Perhaps many beekeepers don't like it, but no one else wanted to do the job, except beekeepers. Or people who once they became Inspectors built bee businesses to feed their families through the lean times of unemployment or no program.
Many people have said to me, "Oh, I thought that the program was dead." And it almost was.
After the letter coming later this week we will see how many people will be eligable. If the letter says, "If you own bees, you can't be an Inspector.", you will see quite a few fewer Inspectors or some of us will have to sell our bees. I'd rather not. But, my wife and I will make that decision in regards to what's best for us. Either way, some changes are coming.
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Hey guys--just sell the bees to your wife or kids or neighbor with an understanding of the how the world is and solve the dilemma, it is not illegal to be an inspector if any of your relatives have bees is it? Any person that was corrupt enough to sabatoge a fellow beekeepers bee sites or integrity could end up finding nails and ashes instead of hives. Todays world is three light years different than what it was like when I was a kid! I would trust a beekeeper inspecting my hives much more than any other trade doing the inspection.
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Being related to a beekeeper will be tested out, if the regs come down to no bees.
There is one Inspector from last year who lives with her parents and her father has bees. What will she have to do? Move? Swear not to help her father?
She already shouldn't Inspect her Father's bees, on the job. What if she advises him or visa versa?
We will see.
There is one Inspector from last year who lives with her parents and her father has bees. What will she have to do? Move? Swear not to help her father?
She already shouldn't Inspect her Father's bees, on the job. What if she advises him or visa versa?
We will see.
"It has been an accepted C o' I for ages."
Accepted by NYS, maybe, but certainly not by the beekeepers who call NYS home. Which is why we have the current situation. And, everything I have described in my last post has happened. More than once.
"Hey guys--just sell the bees to your wife or kids or neighbor with an understanding of the how the world is and solve the dilemma, it is not illegal to be an inspector if any of your relatives have bees is it?"
This is the kind of thinking that will kill the program for good. If the NYS inspection service wants to inspect hives, they need to EARN the trust of the beekeepers, and that is not the way to do it. If you can't own bees, then you can't own bees. Slipping through a loophole to achieve an end around a regulation will ensure the demise of the inspection program.
Accepted by NYS, maybe, but certainly not by the beekeepers who call NYS home. Which is why we have the current situation. And, everything I have described in my last post has happened. More than once.
"Hey guys--just sell the bees to your wife or kids or neighbor with an understanding of the how the world is and solve the dilemma, it is not illegal to be an inspector if any of your relatives have bees is it?"
This is the kind of thinking that will kill the program for good. If the NYS inspection service wants to inspect hives, they need to EARN the trust of the beekeepers, and that is not the way to do it. If you can't own bees, then you can't own bees. Slipping through a loophole to achieve an end around a regulation will ensure the demise of the inspection program.
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Hey, Hey, Hey. Some elected positions are there to serve the public. Nut you might bee right about the law degree.
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Hawk
Hawk
"To me this is like saying that you can't be a state game warden/protector if you hunt. Doesn't make sense to me."
In the conflict of interest concept for the inspection program the problem is you have beekeepers who make their living at keeping bees inspecting beekeepers who make a living keeping bees and are both competing for the same revenues. As peggjam post points out a few possibilities many more exist.
In the conflict of interest concept for the inspection program the problem is you have beekeepers who make their living at keeping bees inspecting beekeepers who make a living keeping bees and are both competing for the same revenues. As peggjam post points out a few possibilities many more exist.
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"Competing for the same revenues." Really?
I recognize that what I have been doing is a conflict of interests, between being an Apiary Inspector and a Beekeeper. No argument there.
But competing for the same revenue? Maybe, maybe not.
If I stop producing honey tomorrow, will that give someone else an opportunity to make more? Or for someone else to get more for their honey?
The honey that I sold to the packers, will they pay more just because I drop out? Or if all of the Inspectors with bees drop out. I don't think so. Do you?
And what about the market that I have developed? The market that no one else was using for at least the first 10 years that I was around and am now into? Now that I have developed a local desire for local honey, I'm sure that someone else could step into my place if I dropped out. But no one is trying to now and there doesn't seem to be anyone willing or able to do what I have. In relation to marketing local honey to the North Country. Not near here anyway.
If I dropped out of pollination to the Champlain Valley, that would knock out about 400 colonies from me for 4 orchards. Anybody want that? Let me know. The guys that I pollinate with would have told me if anyone had been snooping around looking for pollination work.
Rick Drutchess, from VT, asked me a couple of weeks ago if I wanted more pollination work in the Camplain Valley. I guess he's looking to cut back on his obligations.
For the amount of honey production that I loose, going to the ochards, I don't know if it is all that profitable.
If I dropped out, then out of state pollinators would fill in to some of that work. Andy Card pollinates the home orchard of one of my "contracts", so maybe he would fill in there. Not that he is an out of stater anymore, really.
So, my point is that if my being a Beekeeper is keeping someone else from being able to make a living at beekeeping, I just don't see it.
And if my being an Apiary Inspector is keeping anyone from being an Apiary Inspector, that sure ain't the case. We can't find enough people willing to do the job.
So, "C o' I"? Sure. In the literal sense of the word. In competition with other beekeepers? Show me how and how that is negatively effecting other beekeepers.
And let's not talk hypotheticals. Let's talk real situations, now. And other real situations that have happened and how they were resolved.
I'd like the Inspectors to be the best, most interested, most up to date persons available.
Perhaps it's too bad that those people just happen to feel that they have to keep bees in order to do Apiary Inspection and Beekeeping in order to keep their families standard of living above the poverty level. If that's not being to dramatic.
In other words, if I had a job with the security that it would be there the next season, and I could afford to just take the unemployment, I never would have had more than just a few colonies of bees. Especially if it had been spelled out to me that I couldn't.
I recognize that what I have been doing is a conflict of interests, between being an Apiary Inspector and a Beekeeper. No argument there.
But competing for the same revenue? Maybe, maybe not.
If I stop producing honey tomorrow, will that give someone else an opportunity to make more? Or for someone else to get more for their honey?
The honey that I sold to the packers, will they pay more just because I drop out? Or if all of the Inspectors with bees drop out. I don't think so. Do you?
And what about the market that I have developed? The market that no one else was using for at least the first 10 years that I was around and am now into? Now that I have developed a local desire for local honey, I'm sure that someone else could step into my place if I dropped out. But no one is trying to now and there doesn't seem to be anyone willing or able to do what I have. In relation to marketing local honey to the North Country. Not near here anyway.
If I dropped out of pollination to the Champlain Valley, that would knock out about 400 colonies from me for 4 orchards. Anybody want that? Let me know. The guys that I pollinate with would have told me if anyone had been snooping around looking for pollination work.
Rick Drutchess, from VT, asked me a couple of weeks ago if I wanted more pollination work in the Camplain Valley. I guess he's looking to cut back on his obligations.
For the amount of honey production that I loose, going to the ochards, I don't know if it is all that profitable.
If I dropped out, then out of state pollinators would fill in to some of that work. Andy Card pollinates the home orchard of one of my "contracts", so maybe he would fill in there. Not that he is an out of stater anymore, really.
So, my point is that if my being a Beekeeper is keeping someone else from being able to make a living at beekeeping, I just don't see it.
And if my being an Apiary Inspector is keeping anyone from being an Apiary Inspector, that sure ain't the case. We can't find enough people willing to do the job.
So, "C o' I"? Sure. In the literal sense of the word. In competition with other beekeepers? Show me how and how that is negatively effecting other beekeepers.
And let's not talk hypotheticals. Let's talk real situations, now. And other real situations that have happened and how they were resolved.
I'd like the Inspectors to be the best, most interested, most up to date persons available.
Perhaps it's too bad that those people just happen to feel that they have to keep bees in order to do Apiary Inspection and Beekeeping in order to keep their families standard of living above the poverty level. If that's not being to dramatic.
In other words, if I had a job with the security that it would be there the next season, and I could afford to just take the unemployment, I never would have had more than just a few colonies of bees. Especially if it had been spelled out to me that I couldn't.
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Isn't an Apiary Inspector/Beekeper more of a symbiotic relationship with other beekeepers, as long as the Inspector/Beekeeper doesn't abuse hers/his "authority"? By symbiotic, I mean a position of helping, aiding and protecting the industry?
I'm been accused of being nieve before, maybe this is the case here, too. But maybe it doesn't matter, anyway.
I'm been accused of being nieve before, maybe this is the case here, too. But maybe it doesn't matter, anyway.
Mark
You know the cases of abuse in the NYS inspection program better than anybody here. You know how the inspectors abuse their position of power over other beekeepers in the state. I'm not saying that all inspectors were abusive of their powers, but there were some............
Have you gotten your letter from the state yet??
You know the cases of abuse in the NYS inspection program better than anybody here. You know how the inspectors abuse their position of power over other beekeepers in the state. I'm not saying that all inspectors were abusive of their powers, but there were some............
Have you gotten your letter from the state yet??
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No letter in todays mail. I'll have to wait another day. I am up here in the hinterland where the Pony Express takes a little longer and the canals require alot of locks to get up to our elevation.
As far as the cases of abuse are concerned, I "know" of some, but not many.
I could repeat the tales or rumors that I have heard. But other than the former Apiary Inspector who has been known to sell AFB, I don't think that I will participate in speculation.
For the most part the problem Inspectors have been relieved of their position for infractions against the State, not the beekeepers.
That, as well as potential beekeeper abuse, is why good supervision is needed. With fewer Inspecdtors covering wider territories, I will predict more chances of abuse of the program, and not the beekeepers. Less close supervision will allow more chances for padding production reports. In my opinion.
As far as the cases of abuse are concerned, I "know" of some, but not many.
I could repeat the tales or rumors that I have heard. But other than the former Apiary Inspector who has been known to sell AFB, I don't think that I will participate in speculation.
For the most part the problem Inspectors have been relieved of their position for infractions against the State, not the beekeepers.
That, as well as potential beekeeper abuse, is why good supervision is needed. With fewer Inspecdtors covering wider territories, I will predict more chances of abuse of the program, and not the beekeepers. Less close supervision will allow more chances for padding production reports. In my opinion.
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