October is the month that new state laws go into effect in Alabama. One could be a sweet deal for people who raise honey bees in the State. Supporters of these buzzing pollenators say one out of every three bites of food we eat in Alabama are made possible by bees. A new tax break could help the honey industry in the State.
“I am a master beekeeper, and I am an ambassador for Auburn University bee lab,” said Richard Woodham, who raises honey bees. People who do this as a hobby or a profession often wear protective suits and netting over their faces to keep from getting stung. Woodham says that’s nothing compared to trying a new piece of legislation through the Alabama House and Senate.
“I went to the Alabama Farmers Federation, being honey group, my board, And so I met with Representative Rhett Marcus and Senator Josh Conley to find out what I would need to do,” he said.
Woodham and his supporters in the legislature successfully passed a sales tax exemption that applies to beekeepers. The price consumers pay for honey at the supermarket only tells part of the story. Bees don’t just drop their honey into jars and that’s it. There’s equipment like wooden bee hives and machines that extract the honey it can go to market…
“Well, beekeeping, first off, is a very expensive hobby,” said WVUA23 Richard Scott. He also raises honey bees and sells jars of the sweet stuff at local stores. The sales tax break doesn’t cover honey itself. But Scott explains everything else that goes into
beekeeping can get pricey…
“Because if I believe, if I know right, I believe it's around $200 maybe for a we'll call a package of bees. That's one colony of these, and that's a lot of money when they're free out in the wild,” he said.
Scott even offers to remove unwanted beehives from homes, school, and other buildings. It’s not just a public service. Scott keeps the bees and adds them to his colonies without facing the cost of buying them himself.
“It is a $15 billion with a B business in the United States, there is a lot,” said Woodham. He adds the new sales tax break doesn’t apply to honey itself, but it is meant to lower the costs of running bee hives. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Alabama has fewer beehives than other southern states. But, the agency says Alabama hives produce more honey and sell at higher prices compared to other states in the region. Woodham says the new tax break could do more than help beekeepers.
“There's a little bit over 250,000 colonies in the United States, and is probably a little bit higher than that. And for the United States, the honeybee is the major pollinator for fruits, nuts and vegetable crops, for fresh vegetables and those type things.”
Woodham points to research on what would happen to U.S. agriculture if the nation’s honeybees were to die off. He says thirty percent of the fruit, nuts and vegetables that we eat today would disappear within four years.
