State Fair of Texas Update by John Talbert:

Summer is here and it has been a roller coaster. Hot and then record cool. Seems like the rain has been at the wrong time. If your bees are like mine, you are wondering what happened to the honey crop. Hopefully the weather will moderate and we will have some more stable weather by the time for the State Fair of Texas and the Honey Booth.

There continues to be considerable interest in the honey bee by the media. I have been interviewed several times this year about the honey bee and her impact on the food supply. We have endeavored to present a very positive image about beekeepers and their importance too. If you have any suggestions for telling the story of pollination, please send them to me. As always, your help is needed to provide the honey and funding for the booth. We need more honey than ever and we will need your financial support to be able to tell the story. We are asking the commercial beekeepers to lead the way with $200 donations and the hobbyists $25 or more if possible. We really need to raise about $4000 this year. We are planning some changes to the booth this year and that will require some funding. We also had a ten percent increase in the booth space cost.

The TBA Honey Booth at the State Fair of Texas provides the best opportunity to get our story to the public. Over 1 million consumers of the 3 million that attend the State Fair of Texas pass by the booth each year according to the numbers furnished by the Texas Department of Agriculture. Exposure to each consumer costs less than 4 tenths of a cent. That is very inexpensive. Honey and bees have been the news a lot lately. This has increased the demand for honey. Help us make the Texas consumer realize that they need to purchase TEXAS HONEY.