Scot Mc Pherson wrote:

> Actually I can see lots of land in pennsylvania being elidgeable for
> certified organic beekeeping. Most of pennsylvania is virgin land or
> untouched since big coal mining ended a century ago. Pennsylvania is
> one of the greenest states I can imagine.

Best thing an organic beekeeper can do with the forests is what the 
Indians did, burn them down. That immediately makes open space and 
brambles quickly sprout up. Great for bees and bears. Plus you can plead 
that you are only doing what the original settlers of the land did. You 
are in touch with nature. (The same practice was, and maybe still is, in 
Brazil, for instant clearing of forest.)

Or you can go into making Potash and burn the forest down, which the 
next set of conserves of the land did. Then put your bees in.

As an aside, Maine attracts many "back to the land" people, and they 
were instrumental in closing Maine Yankee, a nuc plant. They were 
concerned about the impact of all that radiation escaping and killing us 
all. If you are at all familiar with Nuc plants, the radiation alarms 
will be triggered by someone walking in with a radium dial watch. 
Happened to a good friend of mine.

The back to land people prided themselves in using wood to heat their 
homes. Unfortunately, the mid 20th century US nuclear weapons tests 
resulted in clouds of radioactive dust which settled in the NE US and 
was taken up by trees. So when that wood is burned, it releases 
strontium 90 in amounts well above anything that was detected next to to 
the power plant.

I burn wood in the spring and fall. The old Maine Yankee site is 
downwind of me.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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