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Author Topic: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!  (Read 42903 times)

Offline weBEE Jammin

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Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« on: February 14, 2010, 01:20:19 pm »
We need the help from all bee keepers to get the Honey Bee Merit Badge reinstated, to keep our young interested and educated. Not only will they learn, but it may keep them away from crime and out of prisons. Please help by going to these sights and signing the petition and maybe writing your own letter to help them out. Thank you all you fellow beekers.

http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/#buzzlove

http://www.experienceproject.com/beepetition

Offline iddee

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2010, 02:11:25 pm »
Done
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline ziffabeek

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2010, 03:29:44 pm »
Me too!

Offline Two Bees

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2010, 03:46:28 pm »
Will do!

I researched this a couple of years ago to find out why the beekeeping merit badge was no longer offered, thinking it was probably due to the legal aspects of a kid having a bad reaction to a bee sting.  Much to my surprise, the reason it was dropped by the Scouts was due to lack of interest!  In the last year of being offered, I believe the article said that only 60 badges were earned.  The article also mentioned that the requirements were extremely difficult.  So, it was dropped due to lack of interest?
"Don't know what I'd do without that boy......but I'm sure willin' to give it a try!"
J.D. Clampett commenting about Jethro Bodine.

Offline David LaFerney

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2010, 03:56:22 pm »
If you sign this (I did) you should also be willing to act as a merit badge counselor as well if you are ever asked.  Better yet, contact a scout master and volunteer.
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Samuel Clemens

Putting the "ape" in apiary since 2009.

Offline HAB

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2010, 04:35:53 pm »
I signed.
Think its great idea.  Don't understand how they ever dropped it in the first place.   :bee: :bee: :bee:

Offline weBEE Jammin

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2010, 04:36:44 pm »
It is a great feeling to teach or mentor a young person, or even talk about the honey bees to a whole classroom!!  This is a great time to bring back this merit badge, with all the talk of CCD and all the other problems our world is experiencing now. I have foung many young people very interested in raising honey bees recently.  Thank everyone again for all the support you can give.

Offline hardwood

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2010, 07:09:45 pm »
I love the Idea of a beekeeping badge, I wish it was available when my son was going through scouts. I signed the petition and will contact our local scout chapter to see if I can help.

Scott
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Offline homer

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2010, 07:35:26 pm »
I just told the "powers-that-be" in my area that I'd love to be the counselor if the badge makes a return!

Sure seems like a worthwhile cause to me!

Offline Jim134

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2010, 08:00:51 pm »
Done


  BEE HAPPY Jim 134  :)
"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may  remember,involve me and I'll understand"
        Chinese Proverb

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 John F. Kennedy
Franklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

Offline Two Bees

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2010, 08:44:53 am »
I earned the Beekeeping badge as a Scout when I was twelve years old.  That experience is what got me into beekeeping 43 years later!
"Don't know what I'd do without that boy......but I'm sure willin' to give it a try!"
J.D. Clampett commenting about Jethro Bodine.

Offline weBEE Jammin

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2010, 08:52:55 pm »
I was a boy scout in Africa 43 yrs ago also!!!  It would be great to have people from all over the world sign the petition!

Offline Sparky

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2010, 09:57:55 pm »
Now that is one petition that you do not mind passing around. Like HAB mentioned ( Don't understand why they ever dropped it. ) The only reason I can think of is because of the liability issues from the way people are today.

Offline Soilcon

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2010, 10:09:26 pm »
Now that is one petition that you do not mind passing around. Like HAB mentioned ( Don't understand why they ever dropped it. ) The only reason I can think of is because of the liability issues from the way people are today.

I don't think it was the liability. Scouts do alot of things that could be considered more dangerous than beekeeping. As a Scout leader and relatively new beekeeper I asked about the discontinuation of the Beekeeping merit badge. As I remember it there were only a few boys asking to earn it and hard to find qualified merit badge counselors. I'd love to see the badge be reinstated and serve as a counselor for it.

Offline kedgel

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2010, 11:27:28 pm »
I was a Beekeeping merit badge counselor.  I was involved with the scouting program for YEARS.  All 3 of my sons earned their Eagle Scout award and none of them were interested in beekeeping merit badge because it was WAY to hard and involved.  I never had anyone express interest in it.  You basically had to know it all and do it all.  It was a monumental task to earn it--far exceeding the requirements for many eagle-required badges.  No wonder it is being shelved.  I wouldn't recommend they re-instate it without revamping the requirements.  Heck, I wouldn't have wanted to try it when I was a scout.  It was just way too much work.  Re-instating the merit badge without overhauling the requirements is just straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.  What's the point of having a merit badge that nobody wants to try to get?  The purpose of merit badges is to give valuable life skills and knowledge and to inspire interest in fields that may grow into a vocation or a fulfilling avocation.  I still use the many of the skills I learned as a scout.  If, for example, the canoeing merit badge required I portage my canoe to 3 separate mountain lakes and camp for 3 weeks, I wouldn't have pursued it.  Thankfully, it only took a week at camp and the skills I gained while earning it continue to bless my life.  Earning beekeeping takes all summer.  You have to do it all, up and including (if memory serves) extracting honey and marketing it.  I'm sure that if the requirements were more reasonable, it could be made to inspire another generation of beeks. 

Kelly
Talent is a dull blade that cuts nothing unless wielded with great force--Pat Travers

Offline dennis a

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2010, 09:47:53 am »
Done
Dennis

Offline Two Bees

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2010, 10:45:35 am »
The requirements when I earned the Badge was not like Kedgel described.  I have read that the requirements were tremendous and that was why the badge was dropped due to low interest by scouts.  The requirements in 1965 were similar to the Journeyman level of the Master Beekeeping certification if my memory serves me.  We had a 2-3 discussions at our Scout meetings discussing the various aspects of bees and beekeeping with a commercial beek.  Then, we spent a day at his beeyard putting together hive bodies, frames, foundation, etc. and manipulating a hive.  Everybody got stung, of course!  And then, a short oral exam.  That pretty much covered the requirements then.
"Don't know what I'd do without that boy......but I'm sure willin' to give it a try!"
J.D. Clampett commenting about Jethro Bodine.

Offline Two Bees

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2010, 02:48:25 pm »
The Beekeeping Merit Badge should be made available to the GIRL Scouts as well.   Probably, 50% of the attendees at my local county association are female.  My wife was in the Girl Scouts and she has made the point that they didn't have the cool badges like the boy scouts!
"Don't know what I'd do without that boy......but I'm sure willin' to give it a try!"
J.D. Clampett commenting about Jethro Bodine.

Offline rick42_98

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2010, 11:06:52 am »
Done and Done.

Offline kedgel

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Re: Boy Scout Merit Badge for Honey Bees!!!! HELP!!!
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2010, 11:52:25 pm »
The Beekeeping Merit Badge should be made available to the GIRL Scouts as well.   Probably, 50% of the attendees at my local county association are female.  My wife was in the Girl Scouts and she has made the point that they didn't have the cool badges like the boy scouts!

I agree.  My 14 y/o daughter wants to learn to keep bees.  She thinks its cool to show boys in her H.S. that scream like a little girl if a bee lands on them that bees are really gentle by taking the bee off them and letting it walk around on her hand before letting it fly away. :-D  Boys are way more wussified than when I was in school!
Talent is a dull blade that cuts nothing unless wielded with great force--Pat Travers

 

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