Bob:

> Because those beekeepers are doing the nations pollination. PPB can be as 
> simple as not keeping ahead of the bee work.

So they should be compensated for not doing their work properly?  Suspect 
that there could be quite a queue from other professions if you do that.  Of 
course there is a precedent - bankers get paid well for fouling things up!

> Maybe when all the commercial beekeepers are gone China will do our 
> pollination.

Too busy doing their own - but they will probably sell you some of the food 
they produce!

> You do not see anything wrong will ALL the money going to research?

Not ALL.  I think it right to provide help when natural disasters strike - 
but we were talking about incompetent beekeepers.

> Especially when those doing the research are not sure what they are 
> researching?

So why are beekeepers not involved in the process of defining what research 
is needed?  Happening over here.

> Many of us are seeing insecticide kills. We used to have an indemnity 
> program to at least replace the bees as past history has shown getting the 
> people which poison bees to pay is very hard.

Who paid the cost of the indemnity programme?  Taxpayers?  Not the best way 
to stop people killing bees!  Why not campaign for changes in the law?  We 
have virtually eliminated pesticide kills here in the UK.

> Now the growers are having to choose between using certain chemicals or 
> getting needed pollination.

Although it may help, I would suggest that this is not really the right 
route - it needs to be illegal, with tough penalties, for anyone to kill 
bees by pesticide mis-use.

> I spoke with a family from England last Saturday on holiday in the U.S. 
> and he said half the bees in England had died. Has been in the papers he 
> said.

News to me.  Last winter (2007-8) we lost 30%.  This year things are looking 
much better according to everyone I know.  Still too early to put a final 
figure on it, but I suspect that it will not be much more than 15%, perhaps 
20% at most.  I would not place much faith in stories in newspapers.

> CCD?

No, there is no CCD here - but we have had two appalling summers when many 
queens did not mate properly.  Some failed immediately, others made it into 
the winter but have since died out.  Most of the other problems are varroa 
related, with the odd serious outbreak of CBPV; both made worse by the 
weather and the consequent confinement of colonies.  Our losses were 
predictable - and predicted by some of us.
Best wishes

Peter Edwards
beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk
www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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