A Message from the President
Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Star.
 As a newly formed non-profit trade organization, Lone Star Beekeepers Association’s mission is to promote the beekeeping & honey production industries by listening to the beekeepers it serves, and to give each of you a voice in local & state regulatory issues.Lone Star Beekeepers Association will keep you informed of activities that will affect you through its newsletter publication of The Star.Through this publication, LSBA will strive to keep you apprised of its own activities, empowered by its members and that of that other agricultural lobbying and beekeeping groups.To that end, there are on-going activities in two areas on the state regulatory front that if passed, could affect you as a beekeeper or honey producer. These two areas are changes to both the laws effecting honey sales and honey ingredients within the cottage industry exemptions allowed in Chapter 437 of the Health and Safety Code and the beekeeping and hive maintenance regulations, Chapter 131 of the Texas Agriculture Code. Also county tax appraisers are scratching their heads trying to understand how to evaluate properties for beekeeping land use. LSBA is active in helping beekeepers and tax appraisers in all these areas.In the area of honey sales within the cottage industry exemption the Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance is proposing to remove the location restrictions, allowing cottage food producers to sell to consumers at any location in the state so long as the transaction remained direct producer-to-consumer. In the area of beekeeping regulations, in January 2018 the executive director of the Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance, Judith McGeary polled beekeepers through an online survey to determine if they think provisions of Chapter 131 should be changed. The survey questions centered about the role of Texas’ Chief Apiary Inspector with regards to that individual’s powers to order treatment, quarantines and seize and destroy orders. If the survey result trend shows beekeepers want change, FARFA will be asking Texas legislatures to sponsor a bill for the 2019 session of the Texas legislature.In order to aid county tax appraisers in their understanding of honey beekeeping practices and honey bee foraging behavior, Lone Star Beekeepers Association has established the the Apiary Land Use Valuation Education (ALUVE) Committee. Ryan Giesecke has been appointed chair of the ALUVE committee. Through his company, Honey Bee Relocation Services, Ryan offers services to land owners help them acquire & maintain agricultural evaluation for apiary land use. In the course of offering that service he has firsthand knowledge of areas where county tax appraisers are perhaps a little less knowledgeable than a beekeeper and land owner would like them to be.These are a few examples of on-going activities in & around the State of Texas that could affect you. Join Lone Star Beekeepers Association and have your voice heard and your opinions of these issues known through policy decisions and resolutions that will be made during annual & special meetings of the regular membership. While on the topic of membership meetings, the 1st Annual Membership Meeting of Lone Star Beekeepers Association will be on October 27th at 7 PM in Waxahachie, TX. So join, attend & vote. See you in October. |