Originally Posted By: Orneryolfart357There is another war waging in Nv. as well. I don't know if you all saw FOX News Enemy of the State. Here is another battle over water rights. Its kinda scary thinking of where this Govt is heading.
http://nj.npri.org/nj98/04/hage.htm
Many interesting points made therein. For the last several years we've been encountering many of the same tactics in attempting to lease bee rights on National Forest Lands here in North Florida. Every time you attempt to talk to anyone about a Special Use Permit of any nature on Federal Lands here, unless you are a Special Interest Group wanting to save {insert stupid a$$ critter/bug of choice here} you are told, "We're trying to get a handle on where we're at with that. We have so many spots that have just been abandoned, and aren't used, and we're trying to get a count on those locations that are and aren't being used. We should be finished up in a couple weeks, and I'll get back to you then." Said "2 weeks to finish up" study has been ongoing for nearly 3 years now. Existing beekeepers are allowed to continue use of existing yards, however they are not allowed to register and build any new yards, and they are not allowed to transfer leases to other beekeepers. If they give up a location, or if the beekeeper quits/dies/otherwise goes away that section of the forest simply is taken out of use.
The 9,000 acres I'm trying to lease... There are no beekeepers on it, hasn't ever been a beekeeper on it as long as the Government has owned it. The last beekeeper on it was my father, when the property was owned by Gillman Paper Company. Pretty damm sure that don't take 3 years to count.
Then I get the circle jerk on who's in charge of Bee Leases on the National Forest, first "so and so in the Olustee Office is in charge of that." Then after several visits to stop and see her, "Well she isn't actually in charge of that, Ms. Whatever in the Panhandle office is in charge of that, she's only here on certain days, certain weeks of the month." Then when you call her at her panhandle office, she's gone ALL of the time.
Prior to this stall response, the typical response to any request was, "We can't allow any more bees to be placed in the Forest, it constitutes an unnatural population of pollinators in a specified area." Until someone challenged that and asked them what constitutes a natural concentration of pollinators shortly after the head of the state Apiculture Division went on public record stating that feral bee colonies were virtually non-existent in the state of Florida, that they were being wiped out by the same pests and diseases that commercial beekeepers battle. (Which is very much true.)
Bottomline is, we're getting the circle jerk treatment; wait them out, let them waste their time trying to sign up. Meanwhile there are 10,000 little blue birdhouses nailed to trees in the forest, like having a birdhouse to live in is going to make more birds magically appear. You betcha!!
And, when you get below the bottomline down there in the fine print in the footnote you'll find, they deny access by vehicle on most of it, unless you have a special use permit, which really doesn't matter because they don't maintain the roads on any of it. They're overgrown with brush, and have ungodly mudholes and washouts in them, besides being rougher than he11, and they don't care. Because they don't want your a$$ in there to begin with.