>Isn't it ironic that beekeepers have approvals for use of deadly and toxic
>materials
(comaphous an organophosphate) but pest eradicators cannot use any materials
like that?

Not so Brian!

I have two close friend pest applicators. if they need organophosphate to
control a pest all they have to do in Missouri is pay a ten dollar fee and
get the section 18. Done all the time Brian.

 Phostoxin  gas is the most common gas
used in the food industry to control pests in stored produce and fruit. Has
been for decades. No residue !

I sell fruit also at the largest Farmers market in the area.

Real "organic" does not sell very well as the fruit is ugly cosmetically.
50-75% goes on the compost heap. Fungicides are perhaps more important than 
pest control as far as looks go.
I know as I sold such fruit for a couple decades. People many times talk no
spray but then slip past your booth to buy the perfect looking sprayed
fruit.  If they do buy most will pick through the boxes looking for only the
perfect fruit. I tried to put a range of fruit in each box but yet they want 
to cull. After awhile I had had enough of the "organic' buyers. In a true 
organic apple operation quite a bit of imperfect apples abound.

Those people really did not care if my operation was sustainable.

When I converted to an IPM spray program *all* my fruit started selling. 
Still
once in awhile I get the person which stands in front of my booth telling me
I should drop all sprays. I have over three decades experience growing
fruit. I did organic for 13 years. At times you simply want to tell such no
it alls (which has most likely never raise a fruit tree ) to shut up and
move along!

Same with ideas not to protect a 40 foot container of comb. I have seen
first hand in Nebraska and in south Missouri (others operations) what wax
moth can do do 900 boxes of comb with value of over $10,000. Those
beekeepers took a chance and lost.

same with varroa control.

Others can play with varroa. I will control varroa .

>The beekeeping is almost secondary with all of the focus on
meds and treatments and gassing etc.

Keeping a huge number of hives healthy today is tough. As Kirk Jones (
Sleeping Bear Farms) said commercial beekeepers need many weapons in their
arsenal to survive.


>Many people are saying that the politics of Food Production is the
>political issue of the
next decade.

If those people were really concerned they would stop buying their food from
other countries and push for country of origin label laws.  Foreign fruit
and produce is killing the U.S. industry. 11 banned in the U.S. sprays are 
in
common use in Mexico and fruit and vegetables cross the border daily to be
sold in American markets.

*Perfect fruit* should always bee washed as is an indication of heavy spray.
However I see people at Sam's and Costco all the time eating on the fruit
without washing while shopping.

O well would take a bunch of washing to wash
Penn Cap M off the fruit.

Of course now you take a certain PPM of the
neonicotinoids in fruits these are used on. Of course the maker says the PPM
will not hurt your body. Of course their is no long term research to support
such claims.

I think Jerry B. will agree pesticides are not easily passed from the body
and many times end up in fat cells.

When I walk through a farmers market and see loads of greens , cabbage or
fruit with not a single blemish and the growers says no sprays have been
used I know he/she is a liar. However what is the market  to do when the
grower is a liar? Send the produce to jerry B. for testing?

Same with with beekeepers selling honey from a 1000 miles away as local. I
know the beekeeper is a liar but if he tells the store his product is local
than what can the store do.

 All the big packers say the honey they sell in the U.S. is U.S. Sadly not
what their employees tell us when deliveries of drums are made.

bob

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