20 CFR § 655.301 - Definition of terms.

The following terms are specific to applications for labor certifications involving animal shearing, commercial beekeeping, and custom combining.

Animal shearing. Activities associated with the shearing and crutching of sheep, goats, or other animals producing wool or fleece, including gathering, moving, and sorting animals into shearing yards, stations, or pens; placing animals into position, whether loose, tied, or otherwise immobilized, prior to shearing; selecting and using suitable handheld or power-driven equipment and tools for shearing; shearing animals with care according to industry standards; marking, sewing, or disinfecting any nicks and cuts on animals due to shearing; cleaning and washing animals after shearing is complete; gathering, storing, loading, and delivering wool or fleece to storage yards, trailers or other containers; and maintaining, oiling, sharpening, and repairing equipment and other tools used for shearing. Transporting equipment and other tools used for shearing qualifies as an activity associated with animal shearing for the purposes of this definition only where such activities are performed by workers who are employed by the same employer as the animal shearing crew and who travel and work with the animal shearing crew. Wool or fleece grading, which involves examining, sorting, and placing unprocessed wool or fleece into containers according to government or industry standards, qualifies as activity associated with animal shearing for the purposes of this definition only where such activity is performed by workers who are employed by the same employer as the animal shearing crew and who travel and work with the animal shearing crew.

Commercial beekeeping. Activities associated with the care or husbandry of bee colonies for producing and collecting honey, wax, pollen, and other products for commercial sale or providing pollination services to agricultural producers, including assembling, maintaining, and repairing hives, frames, or boxes; inspecting and monitoring colonies to detect diseases, illnesses, or other health problems; feeding and medicating bees to maintain the health of the colonies; installing, raising, and moving queen bees; splitting or dividing colonies, when necessary, and replacing combs; preparing, loading, transporting, and unloading colonies and equipment; forcing bees from hives, inserting honeycomb of bees into hives, or inducing swarming of bees into hives of prepared honeycomb frames; uncapping, extracting, refining, harvesting, and packaging honey, beeswax, or other products for commercial sale; cultivating bees to produce bee colonies and queen bees for sale; and maintaining and repairing equipment and other tools used to work with bee colonies.

Custom combining. Activities for agricultural producers consisting of: operating self-propelled combine equipment (i.e., equipment that reaps or harvests, threshes, and swath or winnow the crop); performing manual or mechanical adjustments to combine equipment, including cutters, blowers and conveyers; performing safety checks on self-propelled combine equipment; and maintaining and repairing equipment and other tools for performing swathing or combining work; and, where performed by workers employed by the same employer as the custom combining crew and who work and travel with the custom combining crew: transporting harvested crops to elevators, silos, or other storage areas, and transporting combine equipment and other tools used for custom combining work from one field to another. Neither the planting and cultivation of crops and related activities, nor component parts of custom combining not performed by the harvesting entity (e.g., grain cleaning), are considered custom combining for the purposes of this definition.