Bob Harrison said "Those with small hive beetle could get their loads turned
as their own fellow beekeepers put pressure on Carla Markman for tighter
border control."

Your fellow beekeepers, Bob, are wondering why you are so insistant that we
share the pain of SHB.  There are only a few northern Calif counties that
have restrictions, and that is because the survey shows that WE DON'T HAVE
SHB YET!

You may have noticed that queens were in short supply this spring.  Do you
think that giving northern Calif queen producers a major problem is going to
help the situation?  When they bring their colonies back from local almond
orchards, they don't want to make up nucs infested with SHB that came from
some out of stater who didn't give a dang about his "fellow beekeepers" in
Calif.

I spoke with one queen producer who produces 80,000 queens in mini nucs.  He
isn't enthusiastic about having to switch over to much more expensive, and
time consuming, large nucs because some Missouri beekeeper is giving
everyone maps showing how they can sneak into California undetected.  It's
just going to raise the price of queens for everyone.

We Californians have no axe to grind with the midwesterners, in fact, many
of us work hand in hand with them (Keith included).  The main reason I wrote
the ABJ article on pollination was to help out-of-staters so they wouldn't
suffer disasters coming to our State.  Maybe they could show a little
courtesy in return by not bringing in fire ants, exotic weeds, or SHB into
areas where it isn't already present.

Respectfully,
Your fellow beekeeper,
Randy Oliver

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---