In a recent "Catch The Buzz" newsflash: http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2007.11.06.08.43.archive.html It said: "The American Beekeeping Federation is one of 87 farm organizations that are calling for the quarantine and inspection functions now at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be returned to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In a letter to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin and ranking Republican committee member Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia they say the 2003 transfer of inspectors previously dedicated to agricultural threats has proven to be unsuccessful." This would be a good move, if they can make it. So, despite attempts to position any questioning of the bee import process as being the "sole opinion of Jim Fischer", "jim's imagination", and "phony baseless misinformed BC articles", it appears that one need look no further than yesterday's e-mail to neatly and completely refute these claims and personal attacks. The American Beekeeping Federation is very much on board with what another tries to dismiss as merely my "imagination". So are 86 OTHER farm organizations. And what, other than APHIS inspections as they relate to pests and diseases of bees, could the ABF be concerned about? Well honey is not inspected by APHIS, honey is the FDA's job. The concern has to be "pests and diseases" of bees. So, let's read on... "The letter says that despite many assurances that performance will improve, the problems continue and lead the groups to conclude that improvement is not possible in the current structure." Gosh, with a statement like "improvement is not possible", it looks like AFB has joined a chorus of voices calling for "new management" over APHIS, specifically, the old USDA management, rather than Homeland Security, who've been running the show since BEFORE the first bee imports. Long story short, Homeland Security has pretty much ignored the APHIS side of inspections while they focused on looking for "dirty bombs", cargo containers containing suicide commando teams, and sharks with friggin' laser beams on their heads. (Kinda funny that with all these concerns about something nasty slipping in, the DHS guys never realized that thousands of stinging insects would be the perfect "cover" for just about any contraband.) And Congress had hearings on this, with extensive testimony: http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=920&ck=6D0F846348A856321 729A2F36734D1A7 Note the headline - "Congressional hearing triggers alarm over lax pest inspections" And even the General Accounting Office agrees that APHIS just hasn't been able to do its job under DHS: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06644.pdf Contrast all that with my modest proposal, offered since 2002, where I simply pointed out that bees are under the "Plant" side of APHIS, rather than the "Animal" side, which is just plain stupid, and that an agency called "Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service" should not need to be begged to consider doing some actual health inspections for a change. Looks like it only took 5 years for everyone else to do their homework and begin to share my point of view. So, the small and prudent practice of taking some samples from the packages imported on the US end would be a quick and easy task with zero downside, so anyone opposed would have to be asked what their actual agenda was. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************