While the facts of the situation are not protective of bee health, there's
no reason to take poorly-aimed pot shots at the messenger.  The facts are
what they are.

The only possible solution to the spread of bee pests, pathogens, and
parasites is for all countries to step up their inspection regime, which
inherently implies moving away from the WTO treaties.  The WTO is overtly
intended to enhance trade at the expense of biosecurity.  In the USA, we
have APHIS and some wide oceans to protect us, but we have thousands of
uninspected shipping containers arriving every day.  It's essentially "honor
system", as this is what is cheapest for the commercial interests that
imposed the WTO on everyone else.

And we still don't have any idea how, or even IF a sniffer dog could detect
a bee swarm in a shipping container even if we had enough USDA APHIS beagles
to sniff every container arriving.

Back in 2002, I wrote a one-pager I titled "Apis AHPIS", and both Bee
Culture and ABJ published it in their December issues.  It was the only
article ever published in both periodicals simultaneously, so the editors
and publishers of both magazines agreed that the message was important.
Sadly, beekeepers (as a whole) did mostly nothing, not comprehending the
threat.  One can find the article very easily on the web, as the title is
unique.

How I transport queens between islands/nations is perfectly legal and
ethical, as I am carrying all the proper certificates.  I just don't want to
alarm the other passengers.  All 3 islands import packages, which pose far
more risk than a carefully-examined queen.

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