August 27th, 2024
A response to the September 2024 American Bee Journal article GEOCURE – A SOLUTION OR A THREAT? By Charles Linder.
“We are a group of dedicated U.S. commercial beekeepers that are committed to protecting our industry and the crops that we pollinate so they can be grown. We come from good and hard-working families who for generations have worked bees to grow the crops that feed our country. For anyone to suggest we / GeoCure are in any way malevolent, or a threat should take the time to talk to us to learn the truth. It makes us wonder whose interest you are supporting.”
- The Beekeepers of the GeoCure National Leadership Team
The mission and core values of GeoCure are as follows:
Strategic Hive Reserve: Work with the U.S. Commercial Beekeeping Industry and other stakeholders to stablish a Strategic Reserve of hives to protect the growers of all crops that require honeybees for production.
Strong Relationships: Build strong relationships between our beekeepers, growers of bee-pollinated crops, and our customers.
Honest Communication: Maintain direct and honest communication with all stakeholders, particularly growers of bee-pollinated crops.
Teamwork for Best Returns: Work as a team to achieve the best returns for our GeoCure members and the growers of all crops requiring beehives, ensuring the security of the U.S. food supply.
Stakeholders & Beekeeping Associations
In light of the enthusiastic response from beekeepers, we want to make it abundantly clear that we are more than open to communicating with all stakeholders and parties interested in learning more about this initiative and its fully benevolent intent. We welcome inquiries from anyone who wishes to understand the process better or explore ways to contribute to its success.
We believe that collaboration is essential for the success of this initiative. Therefore, we encourage all beekeeping associations, media, interested parties, and individuals who wish to help or get involved to reach out to us. Your insights, questions, and support are invaluable as we move forward together.
Bringing Light to Change
As U.S. commercial beekeepers representing 1.3 million beekeepers working for a solution to the ongoing threats to bees and beekeeping, we’d like to thank the American Bee Journal for shedding light on a crucial, upcoming change for the community. We value that it takes time to plan and execute a magazine issue and we appreciate your efforts to inform the industry on relevant topics.
Mr. Linder, we appreciate your interest on the topic of GeoCure. It is respectable to be curious and to busily ponder the happenings in your profession or part-time hobby.
The importance of being busy is learned well from bees. Other notable characteristics are patience, and resilience. Still, without good forage, quality and health suffers, and vulnerability to viruses increase. We have experienced this demise and know it well when we see it. We hope this does not continue to occur – as we have seen with our bees and now with our information.
As the well-known parable teaches about the blind men and the elephant, a partial understanding based on limited perspective neither truly informs nor enlightens. What it does do though is distribute muddling information that diverts from the truth of the subject and the understanding of the hearer of the message.
Progress
GeoCure is moving forward in organization and structure. Naturally, we would not want to shout from the rooftops until the right time. This is why mutual NDAs were put in place. So, for example, hypothetical and hysterical articles don’t magnify a piece of the elephant to not only pronounce what GeoCure is, but project what it means and embarrassingly prophesy what will come of the world because of it. The process is in motion and progress is seen daily. (Recommendation: don’t publish a time-sensitive article in a September issue when written in July. Things change. Quickly.) In the end, all who listen to the blind miss out on the whole – the grandeur of what is right in front of them.
The answer to the question is that GeoCure is not just a solution, it is THE solution. Individuals and any organizations who posture that GeoCure is a threat to beekeepers (and ah-hem, the country’s food supply as we know it) must be so far removed from understanding the struggle of the beekeeping industry – and the bees themselves – to overlook the real threats that are and have been facing the community for years without any real response.
Ask any of the readily accessible beekeepers on the National Leadership Team of GeoCure, (no really, take the time, energy and care to ask them – don’t just toss out names and not call them for quotes) who are steering this effort. Yes, money for beekeepers is nice (and this solution’s value is recognized by those who care and are willing to make a difference in supporting that front,) but these beekeepers have deep thought, foresight and care about the present and future condition of the industry, of the bees and of the food supply. The industry has changed and if a solution, THE solution, is not put into play, there will not be a future for the industry. This is why the beekeeper response was a tidal wave of registrations – an understanding by owners of 1.3+ million hives.
So again, if you were to ask, here is a sample of responses you’d receive:
“King Family Bees are truly inspired by GeoCure because of the stability they are bringing to beekeeping. GeoCure’s plans for the future are going to change beekeeping forever.”
“They are bringing Beekeepers across the United States together and giving us all one voice that can be truly heard. With the rising costs that are affecting the day-to-day operations of the apiaries to the continent fears of pesticides threatening to destroy the heath of the bee hive themselves, the future of beekeeping is under threat.
With GeoCure creating a bee sanctuary with a surplus of hives to helping on trade issues that will bring stability to the Apiaries themselves, GeoCure is helping to preserve our way of life and the future of beekeeping family to come.”
- Manuel king
King Family Bees inc
“When I first heard about GeoCure I was a bit concerned that it was too good to be true. But the GeoCure team has answered all my questions and resolved my concerns and has showed me that they are serious about making the bee industry stronger and more sustainable. With out GeoCure’s investment into the bee industry the beekeeping industry was doomed to collapse. Cheap honey, pesticides, mites, reduced pollination and high inputs has put beekeepers on the brink of a total collapse. GeoCure will go down in the history of beekeeping as a turning point of commercial beekeeping and that they single handedly pulled the bee industry back from the edge of extinction.”
“My family like many who have joined GeoCure are people who have kept bees for 3 or more generations. We are people that grew up with healthy bees until 30 years ago when dramatic changes occurred that none of us could have planned on or foreseen. GeoCure will be working to get bees back to being healthy by putting bees in reserves. God Bless them and all that support them with donations that help keep the bee industry strong and healthy.”
- James Doan
"As I explored the Geocure, Trillion Bees model I felt I had found a unique Real World solution that would not only help the bees and Beekeepers, but help Agriculture in general move in a more sustainable direction. I am proud and excited to play my part in helping this come to fruition. Bees are the Keystone to a brighter more sustainable future in our food supply system in this country, Beekeepers being a critical undervalued part of that system. If you're not part of a solution, you're part of the problem. Come join the solution!!" *(See full quote at the end)
- Richard Homer
GeoCure is working in conjunction with Trillion Bees Earth, a 501c3 nonprofit centered around building a Strategic Reserve of honeybees to protect not only the US commercial beekeeping industry but also the food supply of the United States, one-third of which requires honeybees to be grown. This effort is not in any way designed to restrict or withhold any hives that are part of this program from the crops that require them to be grown. In fact, it is the complete opposite.
Since the early outreach to beekeepers a few months ago, there has been a flood of response. What was going to be a slower moving operation has kicked into higher gear. This is due to the beekeeper response, recognizing the extent to which US commercial beekeeping needs this solution. We intend to show all growers of crops that require honeybees, how that by supporting this program they can lower their pollination costs incrementally to 50% of what they are currently paying and, in some cases, even lower.
We have already specifically reached out with letters to the growers of California Almonds, who require the majority of available U.S. commercial hives to be grown annually. We want to reassure all growers of California Almonds that the supply of hives to their crop will not be in any way restricted. As stated in these letters to the Almond Board of California and Blue Diamond Growers Cooperative, we look forward to explaining to them in person how their participation in the development of this strategic reserve of honeybees, will not only lower their annual pollination costs but also provide a pool of bees that ensures they will always have a consistent supply to pollinate their crop. We look forward to their positive response, and other growers of California Almonds interested in learning more about this, to contact us and to come visit with us.
GeoCure focuses include improving honey pricing and preventing if not eliminating adulterated honey from pouring into our country. We believe that this solution’s resulting effects increase production, combined with the cooperative structure, result in stabilization, and the increase of honey pricing in the United States. This plan will not in any way negatively affect that honey production. In fact, this cooperative structure of the industry will give strength to the voice of the industry on national and international trade conversations, honey quality and bee health, strengthening the value of the US honey crop.
The Cooperative Structure
In 1922 The United States Congress passed a congressional act called the Capper Volstead Act.. The Capper Volstead Act, or The Co-operative Marketing Associations Act (7 U.S.C. 291, 292) was adopted by the United States Congress on February 18, 1922. It gives “associations” of persons producing agricultural products certain exemptions from antitrust laws. It is sometimes called the Magna Carta of cooperatives. There are over 1,700 farm coops in the U.S., with approximately 2 million farmers being members of ag coops in the US. These Include all aspects of US agriculture.
Historically, cooperatives like Blue Diamond Growers Cooperative, established 114 years ago, the Sioux Honey Association Cooperative, founded 103 years ago, and Ocean Spray Cooperative, founded 95 years ago, have set a precedent for how agricultural producers can work together to achieve common goals. These cooperatives have successfully provided their members with essential services, support, and resources, enabling them to thrive.
In this spirit, GeoCure Cooperative aims to follow in the footsteps of these cooperatives by offering similar services and support to its members in the beekeeping community. By fostering a cooperative structure, GeoCure will empower beekeepers to collaborate, share best practices, and access resources that can enhance their operations. This includes everything from marketing honey and bee products to providing educational resources on sustainable beekeeping practices and addressing challenges such as bee health and environmental threats.
It is with this passion that Geocure is continuing to move forward as we more precisely define and refine the bits and pieces of this movement.
As mentioned, there should be a desire to shout this solution from the rooftops. This is of course true, at the right time, which is soon approaching. Thank you for your patience and a preliminary thank you for your resilience in supporting the effort in the future, as you will better come to understand the elephant in the room and shout about it from the rooftops.
Donations
We would invite all environmentally responsible corporations and individuals who want to support the answer to the real threats facing beekeepers to support the GeoCure initiative by donating to Trillion Bees Earth 501c3 nonprofit Trillion Bees Earth | Beekeeping. Please tell everyone you know who care about bees to share this message and donate.
A Closing Note
As journalism goes, a by-line wants to inform his or her audience on the facts. They seek sources and publish information that guides to a better-informed audience. They are timely and the information shared is based on raising the understanding of the reading audience.
Yes, there are also such things as hit jobs, articles written based on guessing, uninformed pieces put together on whims and rumors. These types of articles name people but don’t quote them. They identify organizations but don’t reach out to them for comment. They build blind assumptions on hearsay and narrow perspectives from un-named sources. At best, these articles are insufficiently informed megaphone yelps. At worse, these types of pieces are agenda driven, to guide the audience to a conclusion, to conjecture rather than to increase understanding around the issue.
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* Richard Homer Full Quote:
"I am relatively new to the commercial beekeeping world. Starting our Business with my son Seth Homer 7 years ago, after 5 years as a Backyard enthusiast. The bees have captured my heart and soul. I have enjoyed my journey from 50 hives to a 1,000 this year. I've become aware of how challenging it is to keep bees on a pollination circuit, and keeping healthy bees. The economics of keeping healthy bees and the income streams available to us is very challenging to navigate. I see our beekeepers aging and not many new commercial operations rising up to replace us as we exit the stage. Those of us with family members to carry on the legacy are blessed. But watched one of our legacy operations here in Utah disappear. I have attended numerous conferences and watched the many scientists talk about all the problems our bees face from Varroa mites, to loss of habitat. But have never seen any viable solutions being presented or talked about. I chuckle at the one I did see, where they handed out bee friendly seed packets to save the bees. Cute, but not very much of a change."
"As I explored the Geocure, Trillion Bees model I felt I had found a unique Real World solution that would not only help the bees and Beekeepers, but help Agriculture in general move in a more sustainable direction. I am proud and excited to play my part in helping this come to fruition. Bees are the Keystone to a brighter more sustainable future in our food supply system in this country, Beekeepers being a critical undervalued part of that system. If you're not part of a solution, you're part of the problem. Come join the solution!!" *(See full quote at the end)