Peter said:
>Nice. You talked me into not going!

Actually the ABF meetings are family oriented. First time I had an issue and
was on a first name basis with most those guys. My issue was not the subject
but the place they chose.

I doubt you would get heckled for your articles.

The bee inspectors are meeting also so you should attend. I usually sit in
on the bee inspectors meeting and usually are asked  questions by one of the
presenters. I doubt many beeks realize beekeepers can attend. Last I
attended had around 3 or 4 commercial beekeepers in attendance.

When the first Australian import happened the crew of Bell Hill Honey was
heckled while at the launder mat washing clothes while in California. The
same guys which heckled our crew bought pallets of packages from Brown's
bees to save his almond contracts in spring of 2007. Told me he was sorry
his crew caused a problem later and he liked the bees.

I received some pretty nasty emails concerning the import at first.

I was sent an email saying the import had been stopped because the
Australian bees were the cause of CCD by bringing in the IAPV virus. I sent
back an email the next week saying the import had been resumed.

The same bunch said they were going to get the import stopped because of
cerana . Did not happen.

Sooo I have tossed a few logs on the fire.

I again say to those reading that I will sit down with all beekeepers which
wish to discuss the Australian import. Neonicotinoids or HFCS while in
Orlando. I received hate email over the import articles. Kudo's from beeks
and not one negative email over the neonicotinoid article and basically
silence over the HFCS article other than a few questions about my opinion on
HFCS vs sucrose.

One almond pollination article brought some broker response but was not a
big deal. Out of state beekeepers took a serious screwing that year so I
reported what had happened. California brokers did not like to see any
negative literature about chasing the gold in California almond pollination.
My main source of information for the article was a board member of the ABF
which was spending a week looking at the situation and reporting what was
happening from his direct involvement and from talking to beekeepers from
out of state. He was in the almonds when a load Brent Adee's hives were
rejected.
Was witness to some suspect grading in which only whole frames of bees were
counted and most foragers were in the field. He had hives in California
also. I trusted his information and I trusted the information from Missouri
& Kansas beekeepers I interviewed for the article.

If i had the story wrong I would have done another to straighten things out.
I rechecked with my sources and said sorry to those which did not like my
telling about out of state beeks problems that year.

Come on down to Florida Peter! There is a lot to see in Florida besides 
Disney
World!

bob

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