The California State Beekeepers Association is an organization that exists to support professional beekeepers and California’s pollination needs.

CSBA values all kinds of bees — whether they’re commercial, non-commercial or native pollinators. But our primary concern is protecting managed bees who are doing the work of feeding the world.

CSBA funds research designed to improve bee health and advocates to help commercial beekeepers in the face of several critical issues including:

• Working toward fair laws and regulations that allow us to run our businesses
• Increasing access to forage land
• Managing rising operating costs of everything from labor to fuel
• Contending with drought, heat and adverse weather
• Fending off varroa mites and other pests and diseases without the adequate tools to do so
• Competing with inexpensive, imported and, often fraudulent, honey
• Protecting hives from bears and other thieves
• Controlling Africanized bees
• Uniting the beekeeping community, farmers, environmentalists and the public behind common goals to sustain and protect bees