# Our County Beekeeper's Need Help! (Hamilton County, Ohio)



## Durandal (Aug 19, 2007)

Just calling on some of you in hopes that you might help out. Below is a cut and paste of the what our club has posted ontheir website. I am helping get out the word and hope you can do so as well.

If you can email or send out letters to help influence these folks it would be mighty nice of you all. Especially if any of you are in nearby county or State that might be effected if our county is sans bee inspector.

Thank you!

Richard

Begin cut and paste here:

As of 2/1/09, the Honeybee inspection program was dropped in Hamilton County Ohio (greater Cincinnati) due to budget issues. The appropriation was only $6500. for this important program. We were holding on for reconsideration based on one of the commissioner's (Todd Portune) support for reinstatement. His appeal fell on deaf ears. It is time for us as beekeepers to begin a campaign to get this appropriation and position back in place. This could become an unwelcome trend as dollars get scarce and the apathetic attitude about the importance of Honeybees. Below, I have included a sample letter you can copy and paste, (if you like) into an e-mail or USPS mail to the commissionerâs office. You are of course invited to add your own personal thoughts or compose an entirely new letter to send on.

Click here for the link to the Hamilton County Cmmissioners office. There you will see the e-mail and postal mail addresses.



Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners

138 East Court Street,

Room 603

Cincinnati, Ohio 45202





To the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners; Mr Portune, Mr Hartmann and Mr Pepper,

I am writing this letter about the loss of the $6500. appropriation for the Hamilton County Bee Inspector position. We support Todd Portuneâs effort towards reconsideration, re-instituting this position immediately. We only recently learned of this situation, and not from the Board of Commissioners office. You have no doubt heard of the plight of the Honeybee. This is the world's most important pollinator. In your county, you have 144 registered apiaries with a total colony count of 382 colonies. We as beekeepers depend on the Hamilton County Bee Inspector position for numerous important responsibilities including but not limited to:

Inspection for contagious diseases among colonies

Advice to beekeepers, new and experienced

Communication to all registered Hamilton County concerning local, state and National colony information.

We never know where or when the next threat to Honeybees will come from. The Hamilton County Bee Inspector helps us with our odds against losses. 

Ohio has a total of 5,161 registered apiaries with a total colony count of 29,529 colonies. Hamilton County ranks 5th highest in the state with registered apiaries. To date, Hamilton County is the only county in the state of Ohio not participating in the important exercise of Honeybee colony inspection. This has the beekeepers in the entire state of Ohio and particularly the surrounding counties very apprehensive about beekeeping conditions in Hamilton County because of the possibility disease or undesirable gene migration across county lines. The great majority of registered beekeepers in Hamilton County and some in surrounding counties belong to the SouthWestern Ohio Beekeepers Association (SWOBA) www.swoba.org. The news about removal of Hamilton County Bee Inspector has traveled quickly around the state Honeybee associations and with local newspapers. This communication is a part of an aggressive communications campaign with your office with our pleas to re-instate this important position, not only from Hamilton County beekeepers, but from Warren www.warrencountybeekeepers.org , Butler and Clermont as well. 

Our local and State organizations are all geared towards the education of the public and beekeepers about the benefits and satisfaction associated with keeping healthy thriving Honeybee colonies. We collectively handle hundreds of phone calls and e-mail messages about bees, and other issues the public might view as honeybee related. We invite you to look at the websites I have included in this message and see what we are about. We also hope you will take the time to attend some of our meetings or outings. The dates and times are on our sites. We think you'll be as fascinated as we are.

Best Regards,


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