a randy oliver snip > followed by my comment.. 
I've spoken with Texas beekeepers who are happy with the line; I've also
spoken with those such as Charlie who felt they were a bit spicy.  I feel
that we should be careful on Bee-L not to disparage those who are actually
doing hard work at improving honey bee stocks. Talk is cheap; running a
business breeding and selling queens is not.

> Last line Randy is right on target. Sadly you can hear marginalizing dismissive conversation all across the bee keeping world with no deviation based on size of operation. The new beekeeper are here to save the bees and know everything without even knowing how to light a smoker and often the true commercial folks outright despise learning and education. 

>As I stated previously early interaction (sideliner and then commercial bees) with hot bees does give one a bit more level expectation as to the mood and defensiveness of honeybees in general. Everyone and every bee school need to constantly remind everyone that bees (of even the mildest temperament) will hurt you badly.  Africanized bees are here and in my own experience beekeepers (at least those with any experience) deal with these in a straight forward manner. Although KNOWINGLY keeping africanize bees in Texas is illegal we have citizen here writing multiple article in the ABJ bragging about keeping africanized stock (whether the hives really are africanized is anyone guess). No action or questions by state authority to address this violation of the law does make me scratch my head.  Such non action by authorities does make we wonder why some think we need new bee laws here in Texas when the old statues are not being enforced?

>Much of my stock here is from BeeWeaver with a good bit of other stuff tossed into the stew pot (I do buy queens from time to time) just to keep the brew flavorful.  I have not used chemical in any form for about 10 years and I make a bit of a honey crop and also sell bees. Once you smell some success from being non treatment it does make beekeeping much less stressful and one less issue to worry over.

Gene in Central Texas....

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