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