Thanks  for your response. Have a lot to learn.
 
Andy Nachbar wrote:
 
> At 10:46 PM 10/30/97 -0600, Marlin (SCOTT) Kline wrote:
>
> >I am not aware of what your statement is suppose to imply?"Afro Bee
> Slash"/Good Citizen/Quarantine Boss/I simply thought I was doing the
> correct procedure as far as having the Bees tested for Africanization?
>
> Hello Scott,
>
> 'Water under de bridge, please do let us know how it turns out for you. I
> expect that you will still have your aggressive hives and have to do what
> the rest of us do when we find aggressive hives and that is to learn to
> live with them or re-queen them next spring if they survive the winter. The
> real cost to check one hive for African genes can be over $100.00 per test
> and the results even then will not have anything to do with any bees being
> aggressive or not as that test has no yet been invented.
>
> >I contacted the Dept. Of Agriculture and they were in no hurry to inspect
> the >hive, they were in a hurry for me to send samples of the Bees. I don't
> know if >you are implying that I should just burn the colonie or explain
> what I am >missing here.?
>
> Aggressive hives are a normal everyday occurrence in honeybees. Just the
> day to day change in the weather can cause any hive to become more
> aggressive for a few hours or days. The normal thing to do is to re-queen
> any hive that is too aggressive to handle and that is what I would advise
> you to do. Turning yourself into the bee police will not change the temper
> of your hives but it could cause a lot of unnecessary grief for yourself
> and neighboring beekeepers if they were to decide to take action to relieve
> you of your problem bees and to protect your neighbors from bad seed from
> your bees by taking their's too.
> I don't know what plans your state has for the "Afro Bees" and they may be
> like what we have in California which is a "secret quarantine" plan based
> on the number of bee caused deaths per week or month. So far the plan is so
> secret that no one really knows what it is, but we do know it changes from
> day to day like the weather. Right now it seems that California has
> acknowledge that we are infested with African Bees and thats it..end of
> story. Interesting that only feral hives are being tested now.<G> Of course
> the last time we tested large numbers of hivebees we did find out that if
> you check any one hive enough times over a period of months it will turn up
> positive for African bees even if the queen was of the best Northern
> California breeding stock.
>
> >I did send samples to the state IL.,the beekeeper as the state quoted
> called >me and said if I was sending in samples that there was no reason
> for him to >inspect the hive and he called after the state explained that
> he would not be >calling me,one reason was he is 80 miles away.
>
> Yeah, and that would also cause some real work and maybe even some sweat
> and bee stings, always much easier to send them to the lab to see if they
> measure up using the same science used in Germany during WW II to identify
> those undesirables among us, and if they do then comes the genetic tests
> not good enough to convict OJ, but for sure has caused a lot of beekeepers
> real grief.
>
> >But I am curious to the quarantine boss with star and gun comment.
>
> Some bee cops dress up like Mexican generals, with big shinny badges,
> uniforms and cowboy hat and boots, Arizona has uniforms that few would ever
> been seen in other then when ordered to wear it at a official function. I
> am not sure if any have the right to pack iron yet but every few years an
> attempt is made to give them that power in our California state legislature
> which as so far turned them down. Can't you see some poor beekeeper being
> shot to death because he would not open his hives to a armed bee cop? But
> then beekeepers do have the right to go armed and many do now, so the bee
> cops say.
>
> ttul, the OLd Drone