>I love boiled beets grated together with fresh horseradish, lemon juice,
>basil, and black pepper.

That might just make them edible. Probably make anything edible.

>The article mentions Australia. I hear that Australia has had some of the
>worst droughts on record in recent years.  >Nonetheless, they have excess
>bees that they can ship abroad.  What's wrong with the US?  Most of
>Australia is desert.

Not quite.  Depends how you class it.  About 18% is desert, although 35% or
so is classed as arid.

>Is it the environmental pollutants and lack of botanical diversity?

I couldn't possibly comment.  However it is true that we spend only a few
weeks a year at most on cropland.

>  Has anyone tried keeping colonies in Australia with American queens to
> see if they can do ok in the Australian setting?

Before we set up the quarantine facility, large numbers of queens from US
entered the country every year.  My guess is that most of the stock is of US
origin.

> This experiment would certainly prove/disprove the environmental aspect.

We of course do not have varroa, and we don't (yet) put down 26,000 hives in
one spot.  The best beekeepers are more concerned with pollen than honey,
and the rest then tend to copy them.  We know the amino acid breakdown of
virtually all the pollens of significance, and are working on other
nutrients.  Good bees will gather honey out of stones.

Geoff Manning

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