LIHUE — Sweet! A new law will make room on supermarket shelves for locally produced honey. On the day that kicked off “Hawaii Pollinator Week,” Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill intended help small beekeepers across the state,
LIHUE — Sweet! A new law will make room on supermarket shelves for locally produced honey.
On the day that kicked off “Hawaii Pollinator Week,” Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill intended help small beekeepers across the state, including the majority of Kauai honey producers, multiplying by tenfold an exemption for state Department of Health permits.
“The bill provides an increase in the amount that home producers can make,” Kauai Beekeepers Association President Jimmy Trujillo said. “It raises it from 50 gallons to 500 gallons (annually).”
Abercrombie’s signature of Senate Bill 482 into Act 131 Monday also clarifies proper labeling, requires records to be available for two years and makes it a condition that beekeepers attend a food-safety workshop and pass a certification exam.
For the general public, Act 131 means there will be more opportunities to find local honey at larger retail stores.
Trujillo, like many small-time honey producers on Kauai, sells his honey at local farmers’ markets or to friends. The new law, he said, would allow producers like him to sell their honey to larger retail stores without the DOH permit.
Abercrombie said in a news release the new law will make beekeeping more financially viable by minimizing administrative and bureaucratic requirements in ways that will not affect public safety.
“We must encourage beekeeping operations of all sizes to ensure that honeybee stocks thrive in both managed apiaries and the wild, especially as bee populations have declined due to disease and invasive predators,” Abercrombie said.
Russell Kokubun, chair of the state Board of Agriculture, said the new law provides clarification to state law and greater flexibility to Hawaii’s honeybee farmers.
“Many small beekeepers have been unable to successfully navigate current regulatory hurdles required to operate a certified food-processing establishment on their own premises for the extraction and bottling of honey, which has resulted in many giving up beekeeping entirely,” Kokubun said.
Though Trujillo and other beekeepers on Kauai sent favorable testimony when the bill was going through the Legislature earlier this year, he said there are concerns that “unscrupulous folks” could import cheaper honey to Kauai and re-label it “locally grown.”
He said one beehive yields, conservatively, about 5 gallons of honey per year, with each gallon weighing roughly 12 pounds. Local Kauai honey can fetch up to $10 per pound, twice as much honey from Big Island, which has a larger honey production, according to Trujillo.
Some beekeepers on the Mainland or from other countries sell honey for as much as $3 per pound. Re-labeling imported honey as Kauai honey would result in profits even with shipping fees for heavy 55-gallon containers, he said.
Even though Kauai is considered to have a small honey production, with only a couple beekeepers pulling more than 500 gallons per year, Trujillo said the island’s total honey output is unknown.
“That’s a good piece of information that we should know or at least have a rough idea,” said Trujillo, adding that because there are a number of small-time producers who are not registered with the state program, it’s hard to track this information.
After signing the bill, Abercrombie officially proclaimed Monday through Sunday “Hawaii Pollinator Week” to recognize the vital role of bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles in maintaining healthy, diverse ecosystems and productive farms in Hawaii and elsewhere throughout the world, the release states.
