He was born Nov. 20, 1935 to Thomas Edward Burleson, Sr. and Annie Laura Whipple Burleson in Waxahachie. He was preceded in death by his parents and a daughter, Lori Burleson Johnson.

He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Nan Epton Burleson, and children: Gregory Burleson and wife, Carol, Timothy Burleson and wife Tami of Waxahachie, Ame Burleson Solomon and husband John of Los Angeles, Calif., and son-in-law Lee Johnson of Ennis; also seven grandchildren and other relatives.

Mr. Burleson received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from North Texas University. Upon graduation he received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He was stationed first in Amarillo and then near Washington, D.C. at Andrews Air Force Base, where he was promoted to Captain and became the chief refueling officer for the base. Among his duties there was refueling the Presidential aircrafts.

In 1962, he was honorably discharged from military service and returned to Waxahachie to join the family firm of T.W. Burleson & Son, Inc. where he worked 49 years as the third generation in his family to produce and pack honey. During that time, he served as president of the National Honey Packers & Dealers and president of the American Honey Institute. As CEO of Burleson’s Honey, Mr. Burleson led the industry by pioneering plastic, non-drip containers for honey.

Mr. Burleson’s civic activities covered a wide range of endeavors. He served as president and secretary of the Waxahachie Independent School District Board and president and secretary of the Waxahachie Lions Club. A faithful member of the First Baptist Church, among his many duties through the years he served as chairman of the deacons, chairman of the properties committee, and supervisor of the construction of the Children’s Building. A landmark event in his life occurred in 1980 when he was awarded the Citizens for Progress Outstanding Citizens Award by the African-American community in Waxahachie. He was the first Caucasian to receive such an honor.

Other involvements include participation in Historic Waxahachie, Inc. and the Classic Car Club. Mr. Burleson was active in Boy Scouts and received the Order of the Arrow Award. Noted for his high energy and indomitable spirit, he thoroughly loved life, enjoying hunting, fishing, camping, cooking, the mountains of New Mexico, and collecting antiques, including vintage cars. He was a generous person in both spirit and means, with a great sense of humor, which served him well as an excellent storyteller, host, and friend. In later years, his greatest pleasure was his grandchildren. He truly loved his entire family.

Services to celebrate his life were scheduled for Sept. 23, 2011, at the First Baptist Church in Waxahachie with interment at the Waxahachie City Cemetery.
The family request that memorials be made to the First Baptist Church in Waxahachie or the American Heart Association.

A guestbook is available at www.waynebozefuneralhome.com.

Photo by Ian Bens

The discovery and removal of a bee tree created a bit of excitement in July on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The dying and decaying maple tree was cut down by the D.C. Dept. of Transportation and the colony was salvaged by a group of local beekeepers. The bee tree was just a few blocks from the Capitol. (For more photos and the story of the rescue, see http://www.tonitoni.org/photos27.html)

Aug. 15 , 2011

Savannah, Ga.- Savannah Bee Company has partnered with the Georgia Sea Turtle Center to raise awareness about the beneficial relationship between injured sea turtles and honey. Often, an injured turtle that does not respond to modern medicine can survive using honey and honeycomb to help heal the wound. Three dollars of every bottle of Savannah Bee Company Bee Buddies Honey sold will help benefit sea turtle rehabilitation and the general operation of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center is a hospital for ill and injured sea turtles. They are the only hospital of its kind in the state of Georgia. The Center is open to the general public and offers an interactive Exhibit Gallery and Rehabilitation Pavilion with a number of sea turtle patients the public may visit.

“We are absolutely thrilled about this opportunity to partner with the Savannah Bee Company. Honey is commonly used in humans for a variety wounds such as burns and diabetic ulcers, however the medical properties of honey are not just for humans anymore. The GSTC uses honey and honey comb extensively for wound care as well as using it orally for small sea turtles that come in with low blood glucose,” stated Dr. Terry Norton, Director of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. “The Georgia Sea Turtle Center works closely with the local beekeeping community to receive regular donations of fresh honey and honey comb. For more serious wounds that need sterile care we also use Medihoney, a medically packaged honey.”

The honey will be available for purchase at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center gift shop, Savannah Bee Company’s four retail stores, at the Savannah Bee website, and through Savannah Bee wholesalers. A honey tasting event is planned for later in the summer at the GSTC.

Gratitude is shared by Ted Dennard, owner of the Savannah Bee Company, “I love the ocean, and the creatures of the ocean, and I really love the healing magic of honey. It is pure sweetness and I am grateful that we can all lend a helping hand.”

The recent confirmation of Africanized honey bees in Modesto–the first confirmed case north of Madera County—is “probably an isolated case, and there probably aren’t any more Africanized honey bee colonies in the northern San Joaquin Valley,” Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen, based at the University of California, Davis Dept. of Entomology,  said today.

“I don’t think they moved there on their own,” Mussen said. “They probably swarmed during or just after the almond pollination season. The migratory beekeeper left but the bees didn’t.”

Unfortunately, the Africanized bees colonized in shrubbery along a well-traveled pedestrian and bicycle route and attacked a 70-year-old man and his three dogs on July 5 after one dog disturbed the nest. The man sustained as many as 60 bee stings, mostly on the face, as he ran an eighth of a mile to a residence.

A recently released laboratory report from the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture positively identified the bees as Africanized, known in the Hollywood movies as “killer bees.”

The Africanized bees may have come from Arizona, Texas, Florida or southern California, Mussen said.  Migratory beekeepers from all over the country truck in their bees to pollinate California’s 800,000 acres of almonds, located in the Central Valley from Butte to Kern counties. Each acre requires two bee colonies for pollination.

Africanized bees swarm more often than their cousins, the European honey bee, the most common bee in the United States.
“The attack is troubling but I doubt there are any more Africanized honey bee colonies swarms in that valley,” Mussen reiterated. “Otherwise, more people would have encountered them in Fresno and Merced counties before they even reached Modesto in Stanislaus County.”

“There’s no way to tell if honey bees are Africanized without DNA testing,” Mussen said. “They look about the same as the European honey bee.  They tend to be a little darker than European honey bees and a little smaller. What sets them apart is their intensive defensive behavior. They’ve been known to chase their victims a quarter of a mile.”
When beekeepers find intensive defensive behavior in their hives, they kill the queen bee and “requeen” the colony.

“Over four to six weeks, the original workers die of old age and the new queen replaces them with more daughters,” Mussen said.

Africanized honey bees are the result of attempts to hybridize European honey bees with an African race, Mussen said. Researchers brought Tanzanian queen bees (Apis mellifera scutella)  to Brazil in the 1950s.  In 1957, some of the African bee descendants escaped from the researchers and beekeepers and began expanding their territory.
The descendants reached southern Texas in 1990 and southern California in 1994.

“In California, they were first found “just outside of Blythe, in Riverside County,” Mussen said.

California State Dept. of Food and Agriculture officials say the hybrid is now established in more than a dozen counties in the state, primarily those south of a diagonal line that runs northeast to southwest, from northern Tulare County to the southwest corner of San Luis Obispo County.  They include Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Madera, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Tulare and Ventura counties. Also affected are portions of Inyo, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

Madera is considered the most northern county to be colonized, but Mussen believes it likely isn’t colonized. Only one case of Africanized honey bees has been confirmed since 2004.

“As an area becomes colonized, the Africanized bees will show their true colors—they will exhibit their intense defensive behavior,” said Mussen, an Extension apiculturist since 1976 and a worldwide authority on honey bees.

Beekeepers who collect swarms in colonized counties have a “high probability” of hiving an Africanized honey bee colony, he pointed out, and should always look for unacceptable defensive behavior.

“Massive stinging events involving Africanized honey bee (AFB) colonies have not been very numerous in the United States,” Mussen wrote in “Bee Briefs,” one of his two bee publications on the UC Davis Dept. of Entomology website. “Some of the worst incidents have involved dogs that have remained near the nesting site once the stinging commenced and received in excess of 2000 stings. In most human-stinging incidents, sting numbers have approached the hundreds at worst, but usually were less than one hundred.”

Modesto is only 68 miles from the state capital of Sacramento, but Mussen said area residents should not be worried. “They’re not moving north that fast,” Mussen said. It took the Africanized bees 37 years to reach California.

However, some individuals are highly sensitive to honey bee venom proteins and are subject to anaphylactic shock (allergic response) and can die from only one sting.  Senior citizens with compromised cardio-pulmonary systems seem to be at a higher risk for bee sting-induced heart attacks, Mussen said. On the other hand, beekeepers who have been stung many times develop protective antibodies and can tolerate more stings than non-beekeepers.

Mussen recommends that anyone working or relaxing in areas known to be colonized by Africanized bees “take precautions” by avoiding nesting areas. If the bees or wasps start to sting, cover your face with a shirt as you run for a building, vehicle or other shelter, he said. You can also carry an Army surplus gnat/mosquito veil with you to protect your face.

“Jumping into water will not help,” Mussen said. “Africanized honey bees fly around and will sting when you come up to breathe.”

The honey bees’ pheromone, resembling the scent of a banana, sounds the alarm, alerting other bees to attack.

“Africanized honey bees are not something to be feared,” Mussen said, “but they are to be respected.”

(From CPORising.com, a media site written for and about Chief Procurement Officers and other supply management executives)

Shortly after the United States began imposing duties on Chinese honey, Australia discovered and stopped a series of shipments of honey that were imported from Singapore (an island with no honey-production capabilities at the time) and headed to the U.S. The Australian investigation showed that the honey had originated in China and had been laundered (or re-routed) through Singapore.

Over the next few years, there was a widely-held view in the industry that certain US importers of were guilty of “honey laundering” and knowingly re-routed Chinese-produced honey through other countries to avoid tariffs. These suspicions were validated last year when the U.S. Justice Department indicted 15 people and six companies spanning from Asia to Germany and the U.S. for their roles in a honey laundering scheme that avoided nearly $80 million in anti-dumping duties and knowingly placed honey that was tainted with dangerous antibiotics into the U.S. food supply.

Yes, honey laundering is not just a free trade issue, it is one of supply risk and public safety; with roughly 73 million pounds of imported honey sold in grocery stores each year and another 135+ million pounds of imported honey used in other products, this issue has potentially huge ramifications.

The practices of those arrested in the honey cartel were deceitful, despicable and clearly unlawful and the U.S. government should be commended for bringing forward these indictments. Unfortunately, according to many industry experts, the arrests have not been an effective deterrent to other laundering schemes and the US food supply continues to face serious potential risks from contaminated honey.

(Read more of this article at http://cporising.com/2011/08/16/honey-laundering/.)

By Andrew Schneider
Aug. 15, 2011

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals.  A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities. 

And the flow of Chinese honey continues despite assurances from the Food and Drug Administration and other federal officials that the hundreds of millions of pounds reaching store shelves were authentic and safe following the widespread arrests and convictions of major smugglers over the last two years.

Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey. 

“It’s no secret that the honey smuggling is being driven by money, the desire to save a couple of pennies a pound,” said Richard Adee, who is the Washington Legislative Chairman of the American Honey Producers Association. 

“These big packers are still using imported honey of uncertain safety that they know is illegal because they know their chances of getting caught are slim,” Adee said.
Food safety investigators from the European Union barred all shipments of honey from India because of the presence of lead and illegal animal antibiotics.  Further, they found an even larger amount of honey apparently had been concocted without the help of bees, made from artificial sweeteners and then extensively filtered to remove any proof of contaminants or adulteration or indications of precisely where the honey actually originated.

An examination of international and government shipping tallies, customs documents and interviews with some of North America’s top honey importers and brokers documented the rampant honey laundering and that a record amount of the Chinese honey was being purchased by major U.S. packers.

Food Safety News contacted Suebee Co-Op, the nation’s oldest and largest honey packer and seller, for a response to these allegations and to learn where it gets its honey. The co-op did not respond to repeated calls and emails for comment. Calls and emails to other major honey sellers also were unreturned. 

Much of this questionable honey was officially banned beginning June 2010 by the 27 countries of the European Union and others. But on this side of the ocean, the FDA checks few of the thousands of shipments arriving through 22 American ports each year. 

According to FDA data, between January and June, just 24 honey shipments were stopped from entering the country. The agency declined to say how many loads are inspected and by whom. 

However, during that same period, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that almost 43 million pounds of honey entered the U.S. Of that, the Department of Commerce said 37.7 million pounds came from India, the same honey that is banned in the EU because it contained animal medicine and lead and lacked the proper paperwork to prove it didn’t come from China.

“There are still millions of pounds of transshipped Chinese honey coming in the U.S. and it’s all coming now from India and Vietnam and everybody in the industry knows that,” said Elise Gagnon, president of Odem International, a worldwide trading house that specializes in bulk raw honey. 

The FDA says it has regulations prohibiting foods banned in other countries from entering the U.S. However, the agency said last month that it “would not know about honey that has been banned from other countries …”

Adee called the FDA’s response “absurd.” He said the European ban against Indian honey is far from a secret.

“Why are we the dumping ground of the world for something that’s banned in all these other countries?” asked Adee, who, with 80,000 bee colonies in five states, is the country’s largest honey producer. “We’re supposed to have the world’s safest food supply but we’re letting in boatloads of this adulterated honey that all these other countries know is contaminated and FDA does nothing.”

The food safety agency said it’s doing the best it can with existing resources and will do more when the newly passed Food Safety Modernization Act is up and running…(Read the full article and the extensive comments by readers at http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/honey-laundering/)

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