Taxes

The modern bee keeper is a gambler.  Colony Collapse Disorder has left North America with half the number of hives it had 30 years ago, 50% of California's bees died last winter alone.  It now costs more for farmers to rent bees than ever before- seasonal profits can be good, but it seems the house is winning.  So why not tax bee keeping like gambling as the California Apiary Research Commission is thinking of doing?  Oh yeah, maybe because California is the US's main producer of fruits and vegetables and bees pollinate the food that allows us to live. 

At best, this could be viewed as a misguided attempt to help fund research by a bankrupt state government. But it contradicts the premise of the much-needed research and misappropriates the state's role in intervening to help avert possible disaster as a result of CCD.