In a message dated 97-10-10 05:33:01 EDT, [log in to unmask] (Rich) writes:
 
<< I also agree that all 3 are false.  I have seen Africans side by side and
 know they are SMALLER, and YES an American has died; the first one was an
 elderly man in Texas.  And I don't think pesticides have done anything do
 the bee population compared to varoa!>>
 
Rich,
 
    I have lost a lot more bees to pesticide misuse than I ever did to varroa
mites. We had a couple of real bad years, when tracheal mites first came in
and we were unprepared and did not know anything about them. But tracheal
mites have passed as a major problem for us; we bred from the survivors.
Tracheal mites did give us warning and got us prepared for varroa.
 
    Some beekeepers ignored warnings and lost their shirts on varroa. But
today, when you hear of a beekeeper losing bees to varroa, it mostly tells
you about the quality of his beekeeping.
 
   Pesticide misuse impacts ALL bees, solitary bees, bumblebees, wild
honeybees (the few, but important survivors of varroa) and kept honeybees.
Pesticide misuse is consistantly our worst problem, and it always impacts the
best hives the most. It reverses efforts at selective breeding.
 
   Pesticide misuse is insidious, as many beekeepers don't know they are
impacted, because many modern pesticides drop the bees in the fields and few
make it back to  the hives. The only symptom the beekeeper sees are bees that
are weak and unproductive. Get out and walk the fields after an illegal
application, while bees are foraging. and you'll see where the field force
is: laying dead in the rows.
 
 > Rory Stenerson wrote:
 > >
 > > What did everyone think of the following statements made in Rick Cole's
 > > article?
 > >
 > > I thought I saw some debatable items such as:
 > >
 > > >Pesticides, pollution and parasites have wiped out 90% of the nation's
 > > >honeybees.
 
This is probably true of wild honeybees, but certainly not of domestic
honeybees. My operation is about half the size it would be, if it were not
for pesticide misuse, because we have had to recover so many times from its
damage. Other beekeepers have quit.
 
You could probably make a case for *half* the nations kept honeybees being
lost from the three causes.  We compensate for the loss by migration and
contract pollination of our food crops.
 
 > >
 > > >The "African" honeybee is slightly larger
 > > >than the "European" honeybee we're used to,
 > >
 > > >So far, no American has died
 > > >from an attack by the "killer bees."
 >
 > Right.  I believe that all three of the statements are false, but it
 > would take more of my time than I thought warranted to track down the
 > citations for challenging them.
 
The second two statements are definitely false. African bees are smaller than
Italian bees. And there have been several deaths.  Of course the old german
black bee could, and did kill people in massive stinging attacks. I have seen
behavior capable of causing death, from black bees.  I have never heard of
any of this sort of attack from Italians.
 
[log in to unmask]     Dave Green   Hemingway, SC  USA
The Pollination Scene:   http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html