Bee and Honey Inquiry

KONASDAD · December 17, 2008, 12:00:16 PM

I was chosen to be surveyed by the National Agric. Stats Service. Dont know how. They want to determine national honey yields.
Were any of you asked?

BjornBee · December 17, 2008, 12:02:58 PM

Yep! Every year.

BeeHopper · December 17, 2008, 12:05:36 PM

Yes, just sent my survey back.

jdpro5010 · December 17, 2008, 02:59:07 PM

Yep, just got mine also.

BjornBee · December 18, 2008, 11:22:11 AM

I wonder, even with the privacy statements, how many beekeepers actually respond truthfully? I know many larger operators who never list the actual amount of hives on their state registration or anything else. So I wonder if the stats are even close to being correct.

And this collection mainly focuses on honey production. What will my hives or others like me, do to the numbers when I list hundreds of hives, and yet almost NO honey production. Is is fair to include my numbers when I focus on bee production instead of honey production? My hives do not produce honey, but I supply bees to many overlooked smaller beekeepers who will never be on any stats collected.

KONASDAD · December 18, 2008, 11:32:59 AM

Thats why large numbers are gathered. It helps limit the damage from untruthful answers. It also asks for number of total hives, then how many are used for honey and how much you pull from these hives. thereby subtracting out pollination and queen rearing hives .

Irwin · December 18, 2008, 11:39:30 AM

The government does this so when the sh-- hit's the fan they know where to get the good's. They do it to farmer's and rancher's to. If you want keep what you got try to fly under radar.

BjornBee · December 18, 2008, 12:25:48 PM

Quote from: KONASDAD on December 18, 2008, 11:32:59 AM
Thats why large numbers are gathered. It helps limit the damage from untruthful answers. It also asks for number of total hives, then how many are used for honey and how much you pull from these hives. thereby subtracting out pollination and queen rearing hives .

That is not correct. They only ask you "how many of these hives did you harvest or pull honey from". There is no way they can analyze it to the point of knowing what number of hives were used for bee production or pollination, and differentiate between those that were in areas of drought and unproductive areas. How can you subtract pollination and queen rearing based on subtracting hives that were not harvested from?

jdpro5010 · December 18, 2008, 12:41:37 PM

I think I will just keep my information to my self. Do they honestly think I would trust any of their privacy statements! If it hasn't happened already, some judge will come along and decide the gov't needs this info for national security or something and whammo they start taxing my supposed income or charging property taxes per hive or maybe they decide my bees are putting off to much CO2 and I need to buy some carbon credits...lol Sorry guys but no Thank You.

BjornBee · December 18, 2008, 12:43:37 PM

Quote from: Irwin on December 18, 2008, 11:39:30 AM
The government does this so when the sh-- hit's the fan they know where to get the good's. They do it to farmer's and rancher's to. If you want keep what you got try to fly under radar.

Could be good advice for taxes.... :-D

MrILoveTheAnts · December 18, 2008, 02:26:47 PM

I got one a few days ago. Haven't filled it out yet though. Actually I'm not certain how much honey I got. I ran out of 1lb. jars and started filling regular mason jars and two wine bottles (bought empty from a Ikea). So I know I got at least 75lb. but after that who knows.