Governor Pat Quinn put the final piece of the ISBA Hobbyist Beekeeper Proposal into place this week by signing
Gove. Pat Quinn turned SB2959 into a Public Act June 13, reducing the regulations for harvesting honey to hobbyist beekeepers
SB2959 into law. The “Honey Bill” provides an exemption for regulation and inspection of the use of an approved Honey House for those beekeepers who produce or sell less than 500 gallons of honey in a year within a local market. Focusing on helping the hobbyist beekeeper keep costs down, the law is focused provides relief to those beekeepers selling honey in the comb or unadulterated condition in local market. The new law, designated Public Act 96-1028 will go into effect on January 1, 2011. To view the new law, click here.
Using the combined power of the Illinois State Beekeeping Association members, the legislative committee of the ISBA established an excellent campaign to bring the ISBA proposal to the members of the State House and Senate, gather support from members of the organization to turn the proposal into a bill (actually 2, one from each legislative branch), and generate overwhelming support for the bills from the elected officials.
Once the bill was sent along to the Governor, the campaign continued with contact suggestions, talking points and updates being provided through the ISBA Yahoo group where ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions were provided.
Special thanks to Mike Sabo for his work on bringing this important piece of legislature into effect and all the beekeepers who contacted their local legislators, the governor and other public officials to highlight the importance of this piece of legislation.
For further information on the public act, and a timeline of the events leading up to the signature, please click here.