Hello Barry and All,

Glad to hear from you Barry. We have missed your excellent posts!

Dee pushed and changed the inspection law in Arizona. Why?

All Arizona beekeepers did not want the inspections dropped. Blane works for
the USDA and was involved. The USDA does not have the people to enforce many
of the beekeeping laws on the books but when busted the fines can be
expensive. I agree with everything Blane has posted and makes perfect sense
to me.

I told Dee two years ago in a post that most of us are content to wait for
the USDA to breed a varroa tolerant bee. We now have SMR and Russian queens.
Give the varroa tolerant  breeder queens from the USDA to the queen
breeders. Then the hobby beekeeper  simply buys a couple SMR or Russian
queens from his queen breeder and installs and the varroa problem is over.
What could be simpler.

Almost all the members of the Midwestern Beekeepers Assn. have converted
this year to varroa tolerant queens.  All the major queen breeders are
buying varroa tolerant breeder queens (SMR and Russian)to incorporate into
their stock. Years of research can be looked at at the Baton Rouge USDA bee
lab web site. The whole process is documented.

Barry wrote:
> When it comes down to it, isn't this really a sort of idealism that works
on  paper, but not in real life? Beekeepers move their bees into the
> "Africanized zone" all the time, including yourself as you have said on
this  list before, and then move them out.

I have never moved bees in or out of Arizona. Beekeepers which I work with
have moved plenty of bees through Arizona on the interstate. I have never
moved bees in or out of a AHB quarentine area of Texas.
 I did post a scenaro once (not long ago) that beekeepers not wanting to
mess with regulation *could* move in and out of Arizona without permits and
use illegal methods while in Arizona without fear of being caught. The
problem would be entering your home state without a inspection permit from
Arizona. Arizona could become your permanent home if caught. In all fairness
to Barry there are plenty of bees moved without permits. I suspect even in
and out of Arizona. Not a big deal to those beekeepers UNTIL they get
busted!

Does anyone on the list know if the commercial migratory beekeeper which
slipped into the Rio Grand AHb quarentine area of Texas with 3,000 hives and
the inspection service would never give him a clean certificate to leave
ever got out. He spoke about the injustice of the USDA and the Texas
inspection service at the ABF convention in Austin, Texas.

All Blane and I have done is tell the list what the LAW is. I can not stop
people from breaking the law. Are you advocating bee movement breaking laws?

Barry wrote:
Why is it okay for some bee breeders that sit in an area surrounded
> by AHB to raise and sell their stock, but not the Lusby's?

I do not have any pity on the Lusby's on this point. Arizona had a
inspection service which would have been able to do exactly as Blane said.
Dee could get her bees certified AHB free and then ship. Dee was at the
front of the push to get rid of the Arizona inspection . Why? I think we all
know the answer.  The Lusby's should have thought what getting the
inspection service removed would mean to their future queen business.

> You would first have to prove that the Lusby's bees are in fact
Africanized.  To date, no one has been able to do that.

Sorry Barry but the burden of proof is on the Lusby's. No clean AHB
certificate no ship legally out of Arizona.  Like it or not the law is in
place for a reason which Blane correctly pointed out . Dee wanted the law
changed and used her position as president of the Arizona beekeepers to push
*deregulation* through as she calls it. The whole story is posted on Bee-L.
Why?

 Blane correctly stated the law from my understanding of the bee laws.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison