> move ahead with regulations that put some common sense back into  
the equation ... interstate transportation of bees (bombi or  
mellifera) is fraught with risks and has damaged the overall health  
and population of pollinators.

* Is it common sense to try to halt the interstate shipment of bees,  
which has been going on for hundreds of years, to try to stop CCD from  
spreading (for which there is no diagnostic test and is probably  
already in every state)?

* Is common sense to cripple the honey bee industry on behalf of a  
group of conservationists, that refer to the honey bee as a non-native  
invasive species, and which will adversely affect the pollination  
value of natives, the value of which nobody knows?

* They are saying that native pollinators are responsible for $3  
billion worth of crops. Twenty percent of the value of the crops  
pollinated in the US! Does anybody here believe that figure?

* I have the paper where they calculate these values and the figure is  
based entirely upon work done by Morse and Calderone, where they  
estimate the role of insect pollinators. According to them, native  
bees are 50% responsible for pollinating soybeans, and 90% responsible  
for pollinating strawberries, grapes and squash. These four crops  
account for nearly half of the 3 billion. If these figures are faulty,  
the whole study is faulty.

 > The recommendations for pollination of grapes for maximum  
production of highest quality fruit are not too consistent. In  
general, breeders have assumed that grapes were either completely self- 
fertilizing or were cross-pollinated by wind, so that in either case  
insects were considered of NO VALUE. Their assumption may be based in  
part on the construction of the flower, which would indicate that it  
is physically capable of transferring its pollen from the anthers to  
the stigma, or breeders may consider that a plant is self-fertile  
because bagged blossoms or isolated plants set fruit, without  
determining the maximum capability to set fruit.

 > There are no recommendations for the use of bees on U.S. grapes. In  
most instances, cultivars are not inter-planted, and large vineyards  
are likely to be composed of scions of a single plant with no thought  
given to cross-pollination. The possible value of insect pollinators  
is given no consideration in grower recommendatio

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