American Honey Producers Assn with Chris Hiatt (S6, E20)

S6, E20 - American Honey Producers Assn with Chris Hiatt

Leslie Houston: Hi, I'm Leslie Houston, and this is the Beekeeping Today Podcast.

[music]

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

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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. Thanks for joining. Thank you, Leslie Houston, for that wonderful opening. We have a great show lined up for you today. Becky, thanks for sitting in for Kim again this week.

Becky: Thank you, Jeff. I'm happy to be here. Again, I appreciate the honor of sitting in Kim's place.

Jeff: Today we have a great guest, Chris Hiatt from American Honey Producers Association. You've worked with them in the past, haven't you?

Becky: I have. I've communicated a little bit with Chris about that farm bill they're working on, and boy, they are doing so much more to support beekeepers and the industry.

Jeff: Going into the fall and winter with the big conference season, we started off with Kamon Reynolds. Then we talked to Dan Winter about American Beekeeping Federation, and now Chris Hiatt from American Honey Producers Association. These are big conferences coming up in January, all about the same time. If you have a lot of vacation, you could really hit a lot of neat shows right now.

Becky: I think the Honey Producers start in December.

Jeff: That's right.

Becky: Honestly, the lucky beekeeper who gets to attend all three conventions, that's like a beekeeping tour, pretty exciting.

Jeff: It would be. These organizations all have a specific focus for beekeepers, but they come at it at different angles. That's why I thought it was really good that we're talking with these folks just so that our listeners get an understanding of what these groups do and how they help the industry, whether you be a beekeeper with one hive in the backyard or one with thousands of hives.

Becky: That's true. The amount of support they generate for the industry with the work that they do in Washington, with the support they do of different research and also research organizations, it's really critical. It doesn't matter how many hives you manage. These three groups are doing a lot of work about just not supporting legislation but also getting that information directly to the beekeepers.

Jeff: Yes, we have that coming up with Chris in just a few moments, so folks, stay tuned. Becky, what have you been working on? You're pretty busy with the Minnesota Honey Producers Association. You've done other work with the Bee Squad. What are you working on currently?

Becky: I'm working on a lot of habitat work still for the Minnesota Honey Producers. I did just have the honor of representing our organization at the State Technical Committee. It's the NCRS, lots of abbreviations in our government. It's the Natural Resources Conservation Services. The Natural Resource Conservation Service, actually they are in charge of the conservation programs that so many of our honeybees actually depend upon. If somebody is going to change their land and have it support pollinators, we need to work with them to make sure the very best mix is available for seed so that our honeybees can get great pollen and great nectar.

I had a great time presenting to them and lots of potential collaboration. I was interested in that a lot of people working with water are looking at pollinator plantings to support their systems. We've got a lot of potential connections.

Jeff: You and John Miller talked about the NERC, do I have the acronym right?

Becky: John and I talked about the farm bill.

Jeff: The farm bill.

Becky: It's the farm bill. The FSA is the Farm Service Agency. They control the NRCS, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Honestly, the exciting thing about that is that they're getting a lot more funding into their system. I'm just going to bring this up because we're talking about acronyms, but the funding is from the Inflation Reduction Act, but they're calling it IRA, which is what we use for retirement. They're now throwing away and using another acronym to make it even more confusing.

Jeff: Oh, God.

Becky: Anyway, but yes, John and I have talked about that. We just had a Habitat Hour that was for the honey producers. That actually we're talking about the farm bill, which we're trying to get better funding for those programs.

Jeff: We got Chris coming up. I know he's knocking on the door, but I know this is just before Halloween. Do you get a lot of trick-or-treaters? Do you go out for trick-or-treat? Are you guys looking forward to this? Are you a Halloween decorator?

Becky: I'm not a Halloween decorator. My neighborhood, we don't get a lot of trick-or-treaters. I always have candy and then I try to get rid of it. I used to bring it to the bee lab actually the day after to get rid of it as soon as possible because we're always prepared. It's like a beekeeper, you're always prepared, but then something doesn't happen. [chuckles] That's it with candy. How about you?

Jeff: No, not so much anymore. One time though, I did set up some empty hives on the front porch and put light around them. The kids would come up to the beehives to, oh, yes. Then I'd come around the side of the house with all in my veil and white-

Becky: [crosstalk] I love it. [laughs]

Jeff: -everything and just scream and yell and throw smoke and everything. It was quite fun. I'm not allowed to do trick-or-treating in the neighborhood anymore. I don't know why.

Becky: I don't know if that helped beekeeping or it was just a lot of fun for you.

[laughter]

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Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbials site, make sure you click on and subscribe to The Hive, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey, welcome back to the show. We're delighted to have with us today Chris Hiatt, who serves as the president of the American Honey Producers Association, or HPA. The organization plays a vital role in representing beekeepers and the honey industry across the United States. Chris, welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Chris Hiatt: Thank you, Jeff. Becky, good to be with you.

Becky: Chris, you said you just got back from the bee yard. Can you just start by telling us how your bees are and a little bit about your operation?

Chris: Honestly, my bees probably looked the best in the last three, four falls. A lot full of bees and having the syrup and mites for the most part under control. We had a good summer after two, three years of drought. We're happy, except for the honey price is down, but I'll get to that later. I'm a fifth of six boys that my dad and mom, they started this company 55 years ago. Five of us still have taken it over. We run it, and of course it's a lot bigger than what it was 50 years ago.

We run in California, Washington, North Dakota. We make honey up here. We pollinate apples, pollinate almonds in California. As present American Honey Producers, yes, we're all voluntary. We pay for our own way to go to DC and just try to represent beekeepers and all of our interests, which are it tends to be many. Since I've been around, things keep getting added, more problems.

Jeff: Where are you located currently?

Chris: In Bowman, North Dakota. We'll start shipping bees here back to California. Tonight's the first load. Then we go near the Fresno area, Adara, California. Then some of, not all the hives, but a big chunk of the hives go to Ephrata, Washington for the spring for apple pollination.

Jeff: You were saying that you are a native Washingtonian.

Chris: Yes, I was born and raised in Ephrata. Yes, near you, other side of the mountain.

Jeff: Chris, we invited you here as president of the American Honey Producers Association.

For our listeners who don't really know anything about the American Honey Producers, can you give us a little bit of background about who the American Honey Producers are, the history, how did you get started? We'll go forward from there.

Chris: The history is before my time. My dad was at the meeting when there was one organization in the United States, and ABF and HBA split. I probably won't get into that history, but it's just the American Honey Producers group didn't really want any Packer influence and they really wanted to keep in mind that the commercial beekeepers are there to make a profit and to stay in business and were really focused on those things. I wasn't there, I wasn't even born yet, but the American Honey Producers now, we have a very strong presence in Washington DC. Our council in DC, actually multiple. One law office and one lobbyist.

We've had pretty good success over the last 20 years just helping keep the honey price up, getting programs, E-lab, funding for labs. I just saw the value in it and that's why I started going to conventions. We're about 500, 600 members. There's hobbyists, and there's sideliners, but the majority is big commercial beekeepers.

Becky: I'm going to interrupt really quickly because you mentioned E-lab. That's the insurance program. Maybe do you want to explain that a little bit for our beekeepers who maybe don't use E-lab?

Chris: The Emergency Livestock Assistance Program is a program, ooh, I can't remember how many years now, 6, 7, something like that, that USDA threw us in with the cattlemen and because they really had nowhere else to put us when we started losing these high losses of hives every year. Now, when you lose above whatever 21%, you get a certain payment for that hive that died. The beekeepers in Florida with the hurricane that lost hives a couple of years ago, the California beekeepers that had hives burnt up, they got payments from FSA, Farm Service Agency.

We helped start the program and then 4 or 5 years ago was paying 50 cents on the dollar. Our council in DC, with our help, we uncapped the program, so they're paying out full payments now. I know there's several of our members personally that I know that are still in business because of that program. We try to maintain that program. That's every year we go to DC and talk to them. They're always tweaking the numbers, so they've lost maybe some-- There's institutional memory loss when people move up the chain and go higher up and you have some new people, they don't know how, why the program started.

Then across the country, the FSA program by every county office is run differently. It's a big frustration. We really worked on it, going to DC, even having some of our board members go to their seminars just to try to get some uniformity. Some counties are denying claims, no reason or asking for things they shouldn't ask for. Anyways, it's a frustration, but it is a program that for the most part works and it's been important for beekeepers.

Becky: I think that's important just because it does affect all the beekeepers out there because if the commercial operations don't have a way to recover their losses, then their operating expenses are going to go up and then that's going to have to be shared across the board. Even for beekeepers with two colonies in the backyard, your advocacy for those programs, it's actually does impact them.

Chris: You're right, Becky. A lot of the hobbyists are getting queens, packages, nukes from commercial beekeepers. The price would affect that. You're right.

Becky: It's one industry. We have beekeepers of all levels, but what impacts one group really does impact the other.

Jeff: For the beekeepers who might've been new this season, weather in California, at least for us in the West Coast, the weather in California and the almond orchards really impacted the delivery of nukes and package bees in the spring. This is how that all is interconnected. What's important for the commercial beekeeper, for a hobbyist, it's important to you too. That's why we brought Chris to the show today to talk about this.

Chris: The anti-dumping suit that American Honey Producers did along with Sue Bee two years ago, it really brought price relief for the last two years for our honey price. It jumped 90 cents to $1. It was great. The dumping suit was quite a bit of money. Our group had to pay $1.25 million for it, but we got India, Vietnam, Brazil, and Argentina under a tariff, the honey coming in. The International Trade Commission ruled in our favor. Because of COVID, I didn't have to go to DC. I testified via Zoom. That was nice-

[laughter]

Chris: -but I was in shorts, in a suit coat above, but it really helped the industry. Just recently, and a lot of this is geopolitics, we totally thought we would win the appeal. I think because of COVID, India got a very small rate. They didn't do very many in-person inspection, didn't require much of India. They've really continued to dump their honey onto our market at very low cost. Recently, just this past week, yes, the judge ruled against our appeal, which our law office was totally confident we would win because it looks like the Biden administration wants to really get at China by helping India and Vietnam.

Honestly, it helped the almond industry because a tariff got taken away. The almond price jumped up 15 cents overnight because of India's tariff. It's just bad timing for us probably, but that was bad news because honey prices dropped probably 65 cents this summer. There's fluctuations and it's going to be a good crop in the Midwest. It's not a bumper crop. It's going to be a better than average crop, but the price should not have gone down that much. It's crazy. I guess it's bad news, but it's an update.

Becky: What's the next step then there?

Chris: We're not going to appeal the appeal. There's some other things we can do when it comes to the next ruling. Unfortunately, also, Vietnam is trying to become a market economy and that because the Biden administration wants to help them too. That could hurt the tariff rate on the Vietnamese honey. Some next steps are coming and there's some things I just can't say right now, but we're still working on it. We haven't given up and it's still providing some relief, but we hope that the administration will see.

We're just not the only hurt party. There's multiple other commodities and industries that are hurt by this, by his stance against India. We have hope, hopefully, we'll get a better duty rate and hot price of honey will go back up.

Jeff: As we were mentioning just moments ago, it's easy to think, "Well, that doesn't pertain to me because I don't care what Vietnam is doing with honey as a Joe beekeeper or Sally beekeeper," but it does. It impacts ultimately the people you help bring in your bees, bring spring packages, help produce your queens. It's all interconnected and we need to be aware of that.

Becky: I think there's a very good USDA graph that shows the change in the import of honey over the last few decades maybe or a couple of decades. It's dramatic. If it's okay with you, we can include it in the show notes so that listeners can actually take a look at it because I know that when I was looking at that information and I can't quote the actual numbers right now, but what used to be imported versus what is imported now is very dramatic. You can see where our honey industry isn't hurt just by a lot lower production over the last 30 years, but then also by the increase in imports.

Chris: Becky, you're totally right. Just 20 years ago, we used to produce about two thirds of what the American consumer consumed. Now, we're down. We're probably approaching a quarter. We're down to a third. it's just so dramatic. A lot of that is habitat loss, CRPs going away, more hive losses. Cheap imports have definitely hurt the market. Then I could probably pivot on that and say, I spoke at Apimondia a couple of weeks ago in Santiago, Chile.

There was a whole afternoon after I spoke, they had experts from England. They had some officials from the European Union that are doing a thing called From Inside The Hive, where they've actually made some busts of nine different packers that had funny honey. Honey with rice syrup from China that came into England or the European Union. They're making a concentrated effort to try to clean up their market.

A lot of the folks from Germany, which have the best testing in the world, NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance, the high resolution mass spec, they spoke also. They didn't quite agree with the methods they used, the European Union. They wish they would use more of the modern sophisticated methods, but it was a good step in the right direction. Same with United States, a couple of years ago, Senator Hoeven--

Becky, you were in Fargo at the tri-state meeting with Fargo, with North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota. I gave our award for a friend of the industry to Senator Hoeven's staffer. Senator Hoeven couldn't make it. He was very instrumental in getting $2.5 million to customs to update their honey testing. They're not quite ready with their NMR database yet, but we hope when it is all up and running, we just see some of the adulterated honey taken out of the market, and it'll hopefully raise the price of honey.

Honey testing is a very hot topic. It was at Apimondia. They came out very strong against synthetic honey, which is that's basically like Beyond Meat, Impossible Burger. It's honey that's really not honey by definition. We're very supportive of Apimondia coming out strong against synthetic honey and on the honey testing side of things.

Jeff: Do you work with True Source on the honey quality and testing?

Chris: We are True Source members, and they've just barely started testing. Personally, HPA does not think it's far enough yet. We would rather see everything get tested that comes in instead of a few spot tests and just a paper trail. We would prefer to see a lot more testing because just the stats from England alone, the amount of adulterated honey in their market was astounding. We know it's probably similar in the United States. We've done some testing of our own. You go to Costco and there's some honey from India or Vietnam for sale for $1 to $1.90. it's below cost of production, even shipping it across the ocean. We're all about honey testing and trying to clean the market up.

Jeff: Those are very big programs and issues you're working on. Besides those programs, what other programs is the Honey Producers working on?

Chris: Jeff, it is a farm bill year. Every five years, this is a big deal. We asked for $9 more million in ARS funding and because of the Freedom Caucus and a lot of the budget cuts, which you know there definitely needs to be some government budget cuts, but just not in the honeybee sector, especially with the amount of loss and emergency situation we have. You saw that. Last year, the BF4 partnership, we had the second worst loss on record. We're not going to get the $9 million, but we want to keep the millions we have going to our core labs, the ARS labs. Eric Silva, our counsel, he writes a lot of the language that's used in the farm bill because he is that well connected.

farm bill, we're doing funding. We're trying to get more forage. The HIVE Act is a very big portion. I could speak about the HIVE Act. It was another, actually, a North Dakota Congressman, Kelly Armstrong, that introduced it. We worked with him. Eric Silva helped write it with his staff. The HIVE Act will help set a standard of identity for honey, which we've tried for years and years to get. Also, it'll clean up the country of origin labeling, which it has to be 95% more American honey in that jar to have Product of USA on it. Then when a lot of packers mix 4 to 5 countries, it has to be listed in order of prominence on that label.

That HIVE Act, with the farm bill, hopefully it will get passed. We have a lot of support for it. That's very exciting. We wanted to go even farther, but it's baby steps. Canada went even farther where it has Canada Number 1 versus Number 1. We wanted to have something similar. USDA Grade A doesn't really mean much. We would love to see something like Canada, where it's 95% more Canadian honey to have that on there. We would love to have USA 1 and Number 1 if it's a blend. That's for another fight. The HIVE Act is a great step in the right direction.

Other farm bill stuff, H-2A visa program is very important. There's a lot of commercial beekeepers that we just can't find help. Like ourselves here in North Dakota, back in the day, 20 years ago, we used to have college and high school kids. That was all of our summer help, a dozen kids. Now, we have no local help. We bring in Mexicans and Nicaraguans on the visa program. It's a very important part of a lot of commercial beekeepers.

Then another farm bill point would probably be the Tropi mite. We do not want the Tropi mite getting here. A lot more funding for that. I can't remember his name, from Auburn's doing a lot of good research in there. Wint is similar to what Dr. Samuel Ramsey is doing. There's more people getting involved in that.

Jeff: We'll have Dr. Ramsey on the show in just a couple of weeks. He's doing a lot of good research there.

Chris: The tallow is another issue. APHIS wants to release a flea beetle to try to get rid of the tallow in the Southern United States, which we estimate is the second most important honey in the United States. We help pay for a environmental impact statement and an economical impact study on what it would cost if a lot of the tallow was gone for honey production, and the amount of nukes that were made in the South. That's at a standstill.

Then probably the last one I could think of is the Forest Service. They want to deny access for beekeepers. The Xerces Society is behind that. We helped Anna Cox Foster get some funding, and so did Project APHIS. She has just got done, and she's reporting on her, I think it's going to be a landmark study of the native versus, we like to say managed versus non-managed bees. She is finding that, no, it's not as a big deal as a lot of they are saying it is. We want access to public lands because that's the last clean place really we can go without getting sprayed pesticides and stuff.

Jeff: Just a quick note that we did have Stephen Coy on the podcast earlier this spring talking about the tallow honey issue across the South. That's a really good episode if anybody wants to come up to speed there. Hey, I want to take this opportunity to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor, Betterbee Beekeeping Supplies, and we'll be right back.

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Becky: That is a lot of information, Chris. A lot of really good work you guys are doing. I've got a question though. If we could back up to the HIVE Act. I'm just about to send out an email I know to our Minnesota honey producers and encourage them to contact their representatives. It's something that we don't know if it's going to be negotiated the farm bill by the end of the year. Are you still looking for beekeeper support to contact their representatives or is there anything that beekeepers can do to support that effort?

Chris: For sure it helps. I think the last time I talked to Eric a couple of days ago, I think we have a lot of key representatives from California. It was Maryland and Texas and Georgia I think. I think it is looking good and we're getting a lot more support.

Becky: I know the last time I checked on the HIVE Act, it just had three sponsors. It sounds like that has changed dramatically.

Chris: It has. It has.

Becky: That's great news.

Chris: Then on the funding, just recently we've had great meetings with Senator Baldwin from Wisconsin, but she is off the committee, the AG Committee that we needed. Now this is Senator Heinrich from New Mexico, which has very little AG presence, but luckily Melanie Kirby, she's a queen producer. She's helped and now it sounds like they're going to be on board. A lot of this is for funding for the farm bill. Then also Jeff Pettis, my goodness, he lives in Maryland. He sent a very good letter for the Maryland Senator. It's a broad coalition and you got to know the right people and connections to get everything. It's just a lot of money and a lot of people in DC looking for funding and it's tight. Money is tight.

Becky: I just want to circle back. Your Honey Producers, the name just suggests commercial beekeeping. You do welcome members who have one or two colonies also. Your website's very welcoming and I think that just the fact that if you are a beekeeper and you are at all interested in the politics of supporting an industry or being connected and understanding the higher level negotiations and support of government programs, that's a great place for you to be, even if you have one or two hives, correct?

Chris: Oh, yes. I've met some great beekeepers. There was a lady from Colorado that just ran 10 to 20 hives, came to the last convention. Great talk with her and she's very well connected. That's one thing that I found out that sometimes we need help from certain states that have certain senators, certain congressmen, whatever committee is on. Sometimes, a lot of times it's a small beekeeper that provides the crucial help that we need. I know it works for everyone. There's a lot of 100, 200, 300 hive operations along with the 10, 15, 20,000 hive operations.

I think they're retired now, but the largest beekeepers in New Hampshire, they used to come to the convention and they run like 400 or 500 hives. They were just always a lot of fun to hang around with. We're very welcoming. You can walk around the convention and meet a ton of people. I always say you learn more in the hallways probably than you do in the meeting hall. Our convention this year will be in San Diego first week of December. Everyone is welcome to come.

Jeff: The beekeepers from the smallest state were the biggest fun is what you said. Is that what you said?

Chris: No, there were a lot of fun. With beekeepers, you have characters all over the place, right? [chuckles]

Jeff: Oh, that's for sure. You brought it up and you just started talking about it. We're going into convention season. American Honey Producers does have a convention. Tell us about that.

Chris: We've switched. We used to be in January where we have so many beekeepers that take their hives out of the sheds in Idaho. Early January in California, getting ready for almonds, we decided to switch and go to December. Plus, it was hard for some of the speakers and vendors to go between HPA and ABF. We thought it'd be better to just switch to December. Last year, we've been in Baton Rouge, we've been in Sacramento, we've been in Phoenix, we tried to switch. We'll be West Coast this year and Texas the following year. We're usually Tuesday through Friday, but this time, it's Monday through Thursday.

Jeff: What would a beekeeper expect to find at American Honey Producers Association Conference?

Chris: You'll have a vendor hall with all of-- We have the latest techs, the BeeHero, the Beewise, that are doing the robotic beehives, that are doing the sensors in the beehive. Do your old standbys, Mann Lake and Dayton, and people that are selling probiotics. You have the phage people, you have all. You learn a ton in the vendor hall because just so many different new products. A lot of times when you're speaking to the vendors, there's somebody that comes by that you can learn from that has used the product from woodenware to boxes to whatever. Then at the same time, you can switch and go to the main speaker hall and learn.

We have all of the heads of the ARS labs speak. Usually four to five researchers speak on the hottest topic or the most up-to-date research. Then we have stories from commercial beekeepers, how their family started the business, day-to-day operations, usually somebody from the almond industry. We got representatives from DC. It's all over depending on the year and where it's at. It's a good diversity, I think in speakers. Then we've recently added, speaking of Stephen Coy. This will be our second golf tournament that we do. It's a fundraiser to help pay for this dumping suit.

[laughter]

Chris: We just had a ball last year in Tucson and this year in San Diego. It should be a lot of fun. No one got a hole-in-one. You got a free forklift.

Becky: [crosstalk] Oh gosh.

Chris: You got a hole-in-one, which that's probably 65,000. The guy that I was with from California, he came close. He got on the green. I didn't get on the green. We just had a lot of fun playing golf, and big group of guys just having fun, and women, too. There are a lot of women. Anne-Marie from BIP, she was actually pretty good. I was surprised.

Jeff: Is that a hole-in-one on any?

Chris: One particular hole is sponsored by, Hummerbee or Cowan. I don't know who's sponsoring it this year.

Jeff: It's fun.

Chris: Then we'll have an excursion wherever we go. This year we're going to the USS Midway, that aircraft carrier in San Diego. That'll be a lot of fun for dinner and tour the aircraft carrier. Then we always have our banquet with an auctioneer. That's a lot of ways we pay for our efforts in D.C. and people are very generous in their donations.

Jeff: Is there a honey show as well?

Chris: No, no, there's no honey show. I think that stopped when the two organizations split, but there's a lot of honey for sale. I bought some very expensive Fireweed from Dirk Olsen in Oregon, but it's great honey, but it was for a good cause.

Jeff: Fireweed is good honey. It's my favorite.

Becky: I just think of the Honey Producers Honey Show, everybody's showing up with drums. That would be really hard to put on a show.

Chris: I couldn't even take honey to Chile, the Apimondia because their customs was terrible. You had to mail it and in package and fill all this stuff out, said just bring your honey. The honey show was not very big at Apimondia this year.

Becky: Is there a customs agent enjoying your honey right now though?

Chris: I knew not to bring it because they warned everybody.

Becky: Oh, they did.

Chris: I didn't bring it. I wanted to give little 2 ounces out to all the people I met.

Jeff: Interesting. I thought I'd heard that they were recommending bringing it in 2 ounce or 3.4 ounce bottles, and then you could get it through, but I guess that's not the case.

Chris: I was going to do that, then someone, who was it? Somebody told me to read this email and it listed the stuff that Chile didn't accept.

Jeff: Interesting.

Chris: In a foreign country, you don't want to be taken to a side room.

[laughter]

Jeff: No, not a pleasant experience, so I've heard. Honey Producers is involved in a lot of things. You got the conference coming up, you're involved in the legal issues and the lobbying that goes into the farm bills and the various other bills that come around every so often. What about research? What research efforts are you involved in as the Honey Producers?

Chris: More than anything, we are the ones behind getting the funding just year after year increases. Sadly, Kevin Hackett, who's been just a great supporter of the honey industry at USDA, he has cancer now, and I wish the best for Kevin. I remember one time he told us in DC that, what did he tell us? He goes, "You guys are such a small group, but you have a big wake, or you drag a big disc or something," he said. He showed us the numbers. It was crazy over the last 10, 15 years, the millions of dollars that have increased year over year through our efforts. That was very nice of Kevin to say that and I wish him the best, but it does require a presence and you have to be at the table to be heard.

I don't want to be away from my family more than I have to, but those 3, 4 days in DC are important, and all those different key states, and our champions on Capitol Hill that have done so much for us. Some of them are Republicans, some of them are Democrats. Senator Tester of Montana, Democrat has been a big champion for us on the Hill. Senator Heitkamp from North Dakota when she was around, Democrat, very important. Senator Thune from South Dakota. There's just a lot of work that's been over the years, over years, just political capital and just networking, basically.

Jeff: That's all through the ARS research?

Chris: Yes, the ARS research funding. We were a key, one of our past presidents, Darren Cox, really wanted to get a lab in Davis. We were key in getting that Davis lab up and running with Julia Fine and Arathi. We were at the ribbon cutting. That was just very nice of them. We just want to grow it, get it bigger. Our labs, unfortunately, Baton Rouge and Beltsville, they need to update.

The Baton Rouge lab will be moving to, I think it's called Western University or Southern. I can't remember. It's a historically Black college and they'll have bigger facilities, better, newer facilities, so that's exciting. We just trying to get some of these positions filled. It takes such a long time to get positions filled when someone retires and they lose a lab assistant. It's a constant attention to keep the ARS labs funded.

Becky: I don't want to put more on your plate, but we're getting set to interview Judy Wu-Smart, professor at University of Nebraska. She has mentioned that she's actually lost some samples because when she has to ship samples to a coast and they're sensitive to heat, she's had some problems where she hasn't been able to get them there. She's actually put out a request. I believe she emailed back and forth with Kevin Hackett that it would be lovely to have a Midwest or Great Plains ARS lab representative. If you could just add that to all that you're doing, I'm sure you could have that finalized by the end of 2023, right? [laughs]

Chris: Yes, and that's the thing because certain labs, like obviously Beltsville is specialized in samples and does the whole disease survey and everything. Baton Rouge has its own focus. Logan has its own focus, but there are small labs like in Fargo, North Dakota State, they've gotten a few million, and they're doing some Queen studies, and they've done some virus stuff. Tucson has its focus, but there are some university labs that get some of the funding. I've seen some go to Minnesota, Montana, and some of the other like smaller that are non-bee ARS labs in Minnesota and Montana that do some bee research, not big amounts, but they do some bee research, so always just ask.

We're grateful and we work closely with Project 8% since they funnel a lot of the money to a lot of these different research projects. We're happy that BIP is getting involved, even more and doing a lot of the boots on the ground, the Randy Oliver type research that we want, the applied science type research. Brandon Hopkins, Washington State does a lot of good in the field, boots on the ground type research, which moves the ball down the field we feel instead of studies that are like, "Oh, that's nice to know," but how does that apply to a commercial beekeeper?

Jeff: Exactly. We've had Brandon on a couple times and the work he's doing is really good. Actually, like you said, it's applied research. It's research closer to the beekeeper for the beekeeper to use. How do they get involved with American Honey Producers Association?

Chris: We actually have a brand new website that's less than two weeks old. If you go to American Honey, just Google American Honey Producers Association. You can get involved by becoming a member and then twice a month, you'll get our email that goes with all the updates, current updates that we have and other news and other research and stuff. That's important. Then coming to our convention and the networking and just talking to other beekeepers and finding out what is working in the field, what's not working.

You just learn so much going to these conventions. We just welcome everybody. We just feel like we have a good time and we're not an overwhelming group. I think that if you come to a convention, a lot of people just love it and they make lifetime friends. I've made a lot of friends over the years that have just been just great. I would have never met if I wouldn't have gone.

Becky: I don't know if I missed it, but how long have you been president of the Honey Producers?

Chris: Just two years.

Becky: Just two years. How long were you vice president?

Chris: I was vice president for five years. [laughs]

Becky: For five years, oh, oh. Can you handle being president for three more years?

Chris: No.

[laughter]

Chris: I still have kids at home. I have a middle schooler and a high schooler. I have two daughters that are college, and one graduated. No, my wife said no. It's just too much too. I'm busy doing other things, but I think I'll do one more year. Traditionally, yes, we've gone 2, 2, 2, 2, but over the last few years, you've got to have people on the bench, and people ready to step up. We weren't quite ready and people's operations, and it does take time away. You got to have somebody there doing the work. Luckily, I have enough brothers that can do the work while I'm gone. That's been a big blessing for our family that you can trust that someone's doing the work while you're gone.

Jeff: That's good.

Becky: It's a lot of volunteering and it's a big cost to represent an organization like this. You're paying for your own travel.

Chris: It's worth it. We feel like it's rewarding. We've had better honey prices. You get E-lab payments. We think it's worth it, just that our industry needs it. We feel like it's needed. We're a small industry and sometimes we're not heard. I think as the years go by, I've been paying yard rent to a lot of the landowners here in North Dakota and you go back 25 years ago. It's, how are the bees doing, the worry about the bees. Then you get spray calls. "I'm going to be spraying this. I'll do it first thing in the morning," where before it was like, "Move your stupid bees. I don't care." The attention and the publicity has been good. We just need to use it and direct it in the right ways.

Jeff: I'm glad that the American Honey Producers Association is out there advocating for the beekeepers. If you weren't doing it, the work wouldn't be getting done. I think the bees and everybody, all beekeepers would suffer because of that. Thank you for the work that you and honey producers are doing.

Chris: No problem.

Becky: Thank you for sharing this information, Chris. It's a lot. It's a little overwhelming how much is on your plate. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

Chris: No problem. No problem.

Jeff: Thanks, Chris. I've really enjoyed the last couple guests we've had with the different conferences coming up with Kamon and Dan and now Chris. We have some great people representing the beekeeping industry really putting a lot of time and energy on their own to ensure the success of everyone.

Becky: Honestly, when you listen to all three of those guests and just listening to Chris today, they have a full-time job in beekeeping that they're working more than eight hours a day. Then they're taking on, honestly, another full-time job leading these organizations or organizing the conferences. It is very impressive. We are lucky that people love bees so much that they're willing to work so hard both to keep them healthy and then also to keep the industry healthy.

Jeff: Honeybees are like the golden retriever puppies of the insect world, aren't they? Everybody just likes it, "Oh, that's fun." They're just not as cuddly.

Becky: They're just so cute. You want to look at the pictures I have on my phone? It's mostly bees, so yes. [laughs]

Jeff: That's funny. Our thanks to our guests over the last couple of episodes. I encourage our listeners to look at all of these organizations. Do yourself a favor as a beekeeper, go to a national conference. If you really want to treat yourself, as Chris was mentioning, go to Apimondia, an international beekeeping conference. That'll blow your mind. I was lucky to go to the Apimondia conference up in Vancouver when it was here back in '90s sometime. It's just phenomenal, phenomenal.

Becky: The world gets bigger. I've never been to one. Maybe someday.

Jeff: Maybe they'll do an Apimondia on a cruise sometime, and then--

Becky: Honestly, if they had Apimondia and Metallica was playing in the same city, I would be there, Jeff. That's what drives my travel, is where Metallica is playing. They do world tours, so it could happen.

Jeff: One year it would be Metallica. The next year it could be Taylor Swift. The year after that, it could be Tali Parton.

Chris: Maybe for a different beekeeper, but for me, it would be Metallica. Then, I'm in the double digits, Jeff. I think I've seen them in 4 or 5 countries.

Jeff: Wow.

Chris: In fact, I saw Metallica twice in Vancouver and Apimondia wasn't there then.

Jeff: [chuckles] 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 web page. 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.

[00:45:51] [END OF AUDIO]