My family has been bee keepers since before I was born and this DIRECTLY affected our income. How? The first thing that alarmed the entire bee keeping industry and commercial honey production business was the importation of Chinese honey. First problem was the huge price disparity. China shipped over boat loads of this cheap honey. Next problem was that the honey was very low quality. It had a higher moisture content, was dark and had a nasty flavor. Then the honey packing plants who bought this cheap honey couldn't have it compete with domestic honey so they blended it with higher grade US honey which they sold as "Blended American Honey". Needless to say quality suffered as did honey sales and whole sale prices we received dropped. I can clearly remember this topic listening to adults talking about it. They were outraged. So, state beekeeping associations around the nation pooled funding to send in people to lobby on behalf of American Honey producers. No one listened. Instead, the politicians we appealed to mocked us with, "What, bees aren't communists!" "You think the little bees are commies? Hahahaha" China subsidized their beekeepers, shipped them around to the bee yards, provided spaces for bees, paid for the equipment and meanwhil  7ff8  e their beekeepers lived like dogs, slept in bushes, ate old rice cakes and wore rags. We have to compete with that shit? Then we did testing to see what else was going on with this Chinese honey. We discovered that the Chinese were mixing corn syrup with the honey. It was adulterated honey. US honey has strict standards. To comply we can't have any adulterations. Before the honey flow starts we must stop all winter feeding and then be careful to not take honey stores from bottom levels where the syrup may be stored. Fortunately, this isn't hard to do as bees really don't mix feed syrup with new nectar. Nectar and honey are visually different, taste different and nectar stores always carry a floral aroma. BTW, you can't get that rich aroma from blended honey as it's heated until the natural aroma vanishes as it's a fragile component of the honey. After that, finding there was no political backlash our government allowed honey from Brazil as well. This honey is so full of moisture that it must be sold before production and shipped as soon as possible or it ferments in the drums. Even then, it also has to be cooked to remove the fermentation and alcohol. Then, also it's blended with American honey which happens to be the best in the world.  Since those days Chinese imports of every type have flooded the market with what the Chinese call, "Lucky Junk".