Trevor Weatherhead said:

> Might live nearer to Tropilaelaps but we have managed to keep it and Varroa
> destructor and tracheal mites and small hive beetle out of our country

"Keeping out" pests might be a valid way to look at the integrity
of one's bio-security programs.

But another perfectly valid explanation could be that it is simply chance,
rather than skill.

To illustrate the difference, my grandfather told me long ago
the parable of the man that marched through town, banging
a pan with a spoon.

  When asked why he was doing this, he explained
  that this was to keep the tigers away from town.

  When it was mentioned that no one had ever
  seen a tiger in the entire country, except in zoos,
  he said "Then it is working very well, isn't it?"
  ...and continued to bang the pan.

Which is a cute story, but not as useful as metrics.

A much better indicator would be to openly list metrics.
What bee pests have been detected and halted at which
ports of entry on what dates, and from where?
(Transparency, we call it.)

Here's some transparency for example...
look what just appeared on the ABC Australia website:

http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s716008.htm

   "Thursday, October  31, 2002. Posted: 18:30:15 (AEDT)

  An exotic beetle has been discovered in Australia which has the
  potential to destroy the local honey production industry.

  The first small hive beetles have been detected at two beekeeping
  sites at Richmond, west of Sydney by New South Wales Agriculture.

  The destructive beetles are native to southern Africa and have
  recently established themselves in North America.

  They eat their way through hives and foul the remaining honey
  producting material.

  CSIRO entomologist Dr Denis Anderson says agriculture authorities
  are on high alert to prevent the beetle from spreading.

  "If the incursion can't be reversed and the beetle is here to stay then
  beekeepers will have to radically change the way they manage colonies," he said."

Not exactly a confidence builder, given all the muscle-flexing and
bragging that has gone on about "bio-security" to date.

... sorry, but you'll have to remove "Small Hive Beetle" from your list
of things you kept out.   Don't feel bad, nothing is perfect, no system
is foolproof, and I hope you call up your air force and ask them to drop
some napalm on those apiaries TODAY, 'cause that seems to be the only
method not yet attempted in the fight against small hive beetle.

As both Australia and New Zealand are both isolated by large bodies of
water and are not major trans-shipment points for the entire planet, this
simplifies things greatly for both, and good for them.

But many of the ships that dock and planes that land are
from areas where very nasty bee threats live.

That scares us silly.  Wait till varroa get going in New Zealand,
and count the survivors to understand our fears.
Don't count hives, count surviving beekeepers.

> through our quarantine systems.
> We must be doing something right.

Yes, you clearly ARE doing something right.
You have a quarantine system.
You aren't about to abandon it.

We'd like to keep ours too, please.

We've had it for bees since 1922, and while it needs
much improvement, it is all we have right now.

The changes demanded by a handful of NZ and Australian bee breeders would
require the US to abandon any/all controls, and allow imported live animals (bees)
that simply cannot be inspected at all until they are well into an apiary, perhaps
in the hands of a 10-year-old child starting his first hive.

So we are asked to turn the responsibility for all pest and disease control and
inspection for these imported live animals (the USDA does this for everything else),
over to the same handful of bee breeders, for-profit companies whose primary motive
is money, not disease control.

This would be similar to turning USDA meat inspection for McDonald's over to...
...ummm.... McDonalds.

No, not just similar, but EXACTLY the same.

But we are expected to "trust" them.

And whoever else wants to sell bees, it would seem.

We are ordered to do so by the representatives of this handful of commercial firms,
who pretend to represent entire countries, rather than just a few firms in this matter.

We are not used to being ordered about.
Certainly not by folks who can't even hum a tune by the Ramones upon demand.
We like to build consensus, talk things over, find common ground.

We are not accustomed to being expected to trust people who have done
nothing to earn that trust, and have not even thought to write even one
document that might support the constant claims of superior bio-security
capability, like one entitled:

        "How We Plan To Protect Your Bio-Security"

or      "Our Bees Are WORTH The Extra
        International Airfreight Charges"

or      "Here's What You Can Do About Pests
             Other Than Osama Bin Laden"

or      "Bio-Security Does Not Mean
             Mutually Assured Destruction"

Now, we are trusting folks... like trusting everyone to play fair,
kick the ball rather than the other player, not keep secrets,
not fly airplanes into office buildings before anyone has had a
chance to even have coffee, and be honest.  But we do not have
attention-deficit disorder, so we hesitate to trust just anyone.

For example, back in August, we learned that the "Contaminated Chinese Honey"
appeared in the US, and it tried to come here more than once, with a number of
entertainingly different sets of paperwork claiming that it was a product of different
countries on different occasions.  (I think they were tripped up by one customs
inspector's habit of putting a chalk mark on each barrel as he counted them.
That will teach 'em a lesson - WASH those drums, inside and out!)

Now, nothing against Australia as a country, and no hard feelings against
anyone but ONE Australian for-profit company, but the hard facts are that
one Australian company was served with a search warrant in connection
with these matters, and was apparently involved in a scheme to not only
evade the anti-dumping provisions placed upon China, but worse yet, to
ship the US honey that was known to be contaminated with massive
amounts of an unusual antibiotic, and had already been banned nearly everywhere.

Not a good basis for trust in Australian companies in the bee business, is it?

...and we are not sure that we even understand what the USDA proposes.
Nor are we sure that the USDA itself really understands what it proposes.

So, on Oct 29th, we asked for some time to at least better understand
the proposed regulations actually mean.  We asked for an "extension
to the comment period".  (We also asked questions for several hours
straight, aimed at trying to simply understand the main points of the
document.  It was a hard slog through turgid text.)

Both the Australian and the New Zealand trade representatives were
present, but in their defense, they both likely had much more interesting
things to do than to devote much time or thought to a low-volume, low-price,
low-revenue, low-tech export issue like "Honeybee Queens and Packages".

And they both made the same serious and massive strategic error.
They stood up and opposed any such extension in very shrill tones,
and then walked out of the hearing in a huff.  No dialogue, no perspective
on their view of what the mechanics of the import process would be,
not even a hint that they might be able to explain anything.  Just bluster.

(An error I hope that someone will realize will do nothing but galvanize
"opposition" to any country who declares itself unwilling to even tolerate
some informed discussion.  We call countries that play those games
"rouge nations".  Not as bad as "axis of evil", but not good.)

...even though there were only two beekeepers who came to the hearing,

...and even though only two dozen or so comments had been received,
out of a population of least 120,000 beekeepers in the US

...both clear and compelling evidence that US beekeepers had not been
adequately informed by the USDA.

Yes, I said TWO.
Me and one other fellow.
In a several hundred seat auditorium.
Alone.

  Maybe it was the pouring three-day-long rainstorm.

  Maybe it was the total lack of publicity from USDA.

  Maybe it was the fact that a dozen random people had been shot by
   a "sniper" around the Washington DC area over the past few weeks.

  Maybe we were the only two foolish enough to come anyway.

  Maybe after the "Bee Labs" fight, everyone was sick of trying to work with a
  USDA that can't even remember to put some money in the budget for the
  fine group of scientists who make actual progress with whatever scraps and
  cast-offs they can scrounge up on the shoestring budget they THOUGHT they had.

But the USDA appears to have had plenty of money to try and design
what appears to be the first-ever "no inspection-required" international
system of live animal delivery, direct from the opposite side of the
planet to the beekeeper.  (Even Fed-X can't do that!)

But no money or time to tell anyone about what they were doing, it seems.

Anyway, the USDA and the (now sadly, I must say) "rouge nations" say that
the comment period ends on November 18th, before we can get an article printed
in the bee journals to explain what it all meant (assuming that anyone could figure
out what it all meant) and suggest that beekeepers express their views to the USDA,
one way or the other

        And this is an indicator of how important this is.
        With two phone calls to explain the situation,
        I got BOTH bee journals to agree to run the SAME
        article at the SAME time - something that has never
        happened before.

        They also both did a "stop press" to let me go to the
        hearing and find out what it all meant.

        Recall that they would be the only US interests that
            might profit from a few more queen breeders appearing.
        They could sell ad space, which is how magazines
        make money.

        But they don't care about the money, they care about
        being able to continue to publish a magazine at all, which
        would be difficult if "the next varroa" (whatever it might be)
            came over and wiped out the few beekeepers still plugging
        away after varroa mite, tracheal mite, EFB, PMS, and the
            rest of the alphabet soup of exotic pests and diseases
        wiped out about half our beekeepers in a decade.

So, the obvious question is - what don't the Australian and
New Zealand trade representatives want US beekeepers to know?

What don't they want us to find out?

Where's the deep dark secret that can't stand the light of day?

Why do they want to rush this, and shove this down our throats
before we even know what it means, when enlightened self-interest
would suggest that they sit down and spend a little time (gasp!)
trying to EXPLAIN it.

This does not build trust.
This does not build confidence.

It makes a reasonable man suspicious.
Very, very, suspicious.
And I am a very reasonable man.

The basic problem is that the announcement was "published" in the "Federal Register"
back in August. "Publication" of such "announcements" apparently consists of
printing it out, and then sticking in a filing cabinet in the unlighted sub-basement
of an abandoned Woolworth's department store somewhere near DuPont Circle in
Washington DC, open for public access only on the third Thursday of the month
between 1:30 pm and 4:00 pm.

At that time, US beekeepers were just a little busy with a few other minor issues:

a)  All but a few of the entire team of USDA scientists that focus on bee issues
     had been defunded in the 2003 USDA budget, and we were trying to get
     Congress to restore the funding.

b)  The "Chinese Honey Contamination" issues mentioned above came up

c)  We also had the minor problem of massive swings in the honey market
     mostly due to loss of the aforementioned contaminated honey from
     the market.  Prices went over $1 a pound, and kept climbing.

d)  There was an ongoing debate about "producers" and "packer-importers"
     and how many of each should be on the Honey Board, the group that
     promotes "Honey".  (No, not "US Honey" or even "Clover Honey" or
     "Sourwood Honey".  Just "Honey" is all they ever promote.  That bunch.)

e)  ...and there were a few other minor things going on, like our harvest...

f)  It was also time for both the Eastern and the Western Apicultural
    Society meetings.  Funny how no one from USDA mentioned any of
    this to the assembled groups at either national meeting, even though
    I know that EAS was addressed by four of the top research people
    from USDA.  I guess they did not know about any of this either.

But while Australia's and New Zealand's shills for their bee breeders don't want
US beekeepers to even get a chance to loosely translate several pounds of
dense and obtuse government documents into plain English, let alone offer
comments, New Zealand DOES want to make sure that their beekeepers
send in LOTS comments, and they want to ghost-write them for the beekeepers.

"Never mind understanding anything, just say exactly what we tell you to."
seems to be their approach to their own beekeepers:

http://www.nba.org.nz/latest/30-10-02-hawiian-meeting.PDF

And Dr. Helen Beban, "National Adviser on International Animal Trade
for MAF Biosecurity" is doing the cheerleading for the New Zealand team, eh?

Well, that does not exactly build trust either, does it?
It forces a reasonable man to wonder...

...wonder if "MAF Biosecurity" is an impartial group of scientists
who deal in hard facts, or nothing but a marketing and PR department
dressed up in white lab coats.

So where do I put all the pages with the "MAF Biosecurity" logo
at the top of the page?  Are these Science, or propaganda?

And where do I put all the Australian paperwork?
What goes under "fact", and what goes under "wishful thinking"?

I wonder what the USDA files them under...

Maybe they file them all under "Blind Faith".

If anyone wants to comment:

        The e-mail address is   [log in to unmask]

        The subject MUST be     "Docket No. 98-109-1"

        Include your name and postal address to show that you
        are a US Citizen.

        Consider asking to extend the comment period on live bee
            imports until Jan 31, 2003 so that we all have time to figure
            this out, and maybe even help the USDA fix it.

And if anyone has any of this stuff figured out, send me a note.


        jim