>>Depends how you class it.  About 18% is desert, although 35% or
so is classed as arid.

Poor choice of words on my part.  Do Australian beekeepers keep bees in the arid areas or are they kept in the lusher areas? 

>>I couldn't possibly comment.  However it is true that we spend only a few
weeks a year at most on cropland.

What are the main crops that get bee pollination?

>>Before we set up the quarantine facility, large numbers of queens from US
entered the country every year.  My guess is that most of the stock is of US
origin.

Do US queens (or their eggs) no longer get through the quarantine or is Australia not interested in US stock anymore? 

That's interesting.  So the Aussie packages imported by the US are likely stock that originated in the US?

I remember reading Brown (I believe) using varroa resistant stock from Italy. 

Waldemar

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