Hello All,

As I have said in other posts, I have a lot of respect for commercial
beekeepers in general and Bob Harrison in particular. BeeL is like a big
family, and sometimes family members disagree.

Bob Harrison wrote;

"Beekeeping problems have to be solved without the disruption of the
U.S.
pollination."

I agree with that statement.  Pollination is the keystone to much of
agriculture.

Bob also wrote:

 "Almond growers and others needing pollination rule the USDA. Many
researchers , bee inspectors and USDA officials have tried to stop the
flow of hives on local levels. They have told us you are not leaving
this state!
Then the local official gets a call from his boss and  we wave "bye
bye". Never fails to put a grin on the migratory beekeepers face!"

Ok, if I understand this correctly.  A migratory beekeeper has a
problem; AFB, mites, fire ants, etc. A bee inspector doing his/her job
identifies the problem and realizes the consequences of moving these
colonies and informs the beekeeper they can't be moved.  At that point a
few strings are pulled and the beekeepers are on their merry way,
breaking the law, "grinning" all the way to the bank.

It's a good thing the USDA does not oversee shipping of toxic or nuclear
waste.

I know the pollination is critical.  But I don't think a beekeeper
should be given carte blanche just because they are doing pollination.
Bob mentioned  that varroa was spread more in packages than by colonies
being moved around. I don't doubt that, but I do remember when varroa
was starting to spread, packages were at least for awhile being shipped
with an Apistan strip.  Whether it helped or not is a moot point as
varroa is everywhere.

I have not purchased any bees, other than queens, for a long time.  The
queens I do get are used to make splits that are analyzed before moving
them out of my home yard.  Last week I came across my first small hive
beetle in an outyard.  The colonies in this yard have been there for a
number of years.  There are only a few beekeepers around.  I asked the
state inspector how isolated this yard was and he replied that there
were only a few colonies within five miles and I know both beekeepers he
mentioned. Last year in another very isolated yard, I had my first case
of AFB in 15 years.

Can I attribute this to just coincidence or is something else happening?
I did a little investigating and learned that a local big orchard outfit
has been leasing farmland wherever they can to grow pumpkins.  They have
a large commercial pollinator doing all the pollination. Last year this
same pollinator was selling nucs that were found to have hive beetle.
This was the same person that remarked to large group of beekeepers
about using (in Bob's words) "sheepdip" for mites because Apistan would
bee too expensive for a commercial operation.

A few years back in reading Dave Green's posts about mosquito spraying,
and the Old Drone always battling with crop dusters, I remember thinking
how wrong this was for someone to ignore the regulations and cause harm
to the bees and the beekeeping operation.  Public health (mosquito
spraying), or a grower's pest problems always trumped the beekeeper.  We
all thought that was pretty rotten.  But now we are condoning moving
problem colonies because of a pollination need.  I wonder what the
public would say if an operation in a confirmed Africanized location
moved colonies into northern California,  Washington or Maine to do
pollination.  On second thought it may already or will soon be happening
now that they have finally admitted AHB is in Florida.

How does this all end? The pumpkin grower has pumpkins, the pollinator
has a nice big check, and me; I get to burn some colonies and deal with
a new pest.  If the africianized thought becomes an issue, I will
probably start losing some locations.  Just because my livelihood is not
dependent on beekeeping I am not excited about losing money.

Note to Bob Harrison:  This was in no way an attack on you personally,
if I sounds that way let me apologize right up front, I am not inferring
you have anything but a top notch outfit.  I just want to point out that
we all have a stake in this and we should be responsible in what we do.

Ron Bogansky

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