>So, Allen, what is your opinion on NYS spending $200,000 a year
policing beekeepers to make sure they don't still have the AFB
scourge, and -- requiring them to destroy colonies with even a couple
of rotten larvae?
Hehehe. Thanks, Peter, for that nice slow, easy pitch. You know what
I think.
If that money were spent on beekeeper education and cooperation,
and identifying the problem stocks and the quailty ones that should be
used instead, everyone except a few old-school queen producers
would be far happier.
Unfortunately it is always easier to appropriate money to fight a
perceived scourge than it is to get the same amount of money to do
something more constructive.
Unfortunately, it is risky to point fingers and name a source of the
problem, given the tendancy to sue and lobby these days, but it is not
risky to identify superior suppliers, so let me start.
I think, in my area, that Kona queens are sufficiently hygienic to resist
AFB, even though there are sources nearby. On the other hand, side
by side, some Australian packages I had seemed to break down
easily.
Australia is a huge country and there are many excellent breeders and
producers there, so please don't take my comments as a
condemnation. It is merely a one-time observation of one specific lot
of bees.
Has anyone on the list ever seen more than a few cells of AFB in Kona
carniolan stock in recent years?
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