The following e-mail is being sent out to beekeepers by the Ministry of Agriculture. Please take a few minutes to take part. The results are completely anonymous and any data you supplied will only be pooled as “Kootenay Region” and later in the national survey as “Province of BC”. It does matter to ministry officials when they make representations on your behalf to government, the more beekeepers that take part the greater the weight of any requests for funding or legislation. So here is the e-mail from Paul vW, our provincial apiarist;
Dear Beekeeper,
It is this time of year again when we carry out the annual Beekeeping Production Survey.
The purpose of the survey is to assess the performance and condition of BC’s beekeeping industry and to identify problems beekeepers may have experienced during the 2018 production season.
As you know, the survey is anonymous and even when a beekeeper identifies him/herself, the submitted form is deleted after the production data have been recorded. The origin of online submissions are not identifiable to us and in fact, we are not interested in beekeeper names but only in production data that can be pooled according to region. The final production estimates are made available to you and used to highlight the importance of beekeeping in BC’s agriculture sector.
Production data can be submitted in two ways:
Visit; https://forms.gov.bc.ca/industry/beekeeping-production-survey-2018
for the on-line form. It is easy, quick and free, all done in less than 10 minutes.
Print the attached WORD document, enter your production figures, place in an envelope, add the mailing address (see below), stick on the postage, drive to the nearest mailbox and, well that’s about it.
Please note:
Submission deadline is November 02.
Weights should be expressed in kilograms, rather than pounds.
(kilograms = pounds ÷ 2.2)
Any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me directly.
Thanks for your participation,
Paul van Westendorp
Provincial Apiculturist
1767 Angus Campbell Road
Abbotsford, BC V3G 2M3
paul.vanwestendorp@gov.bc.ca
ph. 604-556-3129
fx. 604-556-3015
West Kootenay Beekeepers 