> They are intended as "disposable" pollination units, cruelly designed to ignore the issue of long-term survival of the bumblebees once pollination is complete. Koppert moved their operation from Holland to Eastern Europe and now Turkey I think; certainly the bumblebees that they now send to the UK are not native (Bombus anatolis I believe) and users are required to destroy them after they have served their purpose so that queens do not escape into the environment. What a joke! Our most common native bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) is rapidly becoming an endangered species. Time to shut the stable door - even though this horse may have bolted there will be plenty more. We now have so many introduced species that are causing problems - mink, grey squirrels, New Zealand flatworms, signal crayfish, Himalayan Water Balsam, endless foreign races of honeybees, varroa, Nosema ceranae, new strains of EFB... and the threat of small hive beetle, Vespa velutina, tropilaelaps etc. Will those in authority ever learn? Best wishes Peter 52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html