This message refers to the two recent postings on Bee-L by Andy Nachbauer
(1/13/99:7:05 and 1/14/99:1006).
 
   The first of his extensive comments dealt with the problems of almond
pollination.
 
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   I agree with Andy on most of the points he made.  For example, I do not
believe that one must scatter colonies throughout an orchard or a field for
effective pollination.  A careful study of the article I published in an
AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL article last November (subject:  recruitment to crops
with respect to wind direction) can illustrate that point in two ways:
 
1)  A yard of hives placed immediately upwind (i.e., with respect to
prevailing wind direction) from a crop should prove very effective in
pollinating the target crop.
 
2)  A yard of hives located even several hundred meters (yards) downwind of
the target crop could prove equally effective.
 
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   Andy's second posting alluded to the complexity encountered when one
attempts to improve a strain of honey bees.  We all know that queens mate
many times in mid-air and thus can obtain a wide variation of genetic
material from whatever drone mother colonies exist in the surrounding area.
 
 
   Some of us are fortunate and know where drone aggregations exist (even
though the question of whether such aggregations exist was hotly debated a
few decades ago ---another example of the vagaries of scientific research).
To the point:  a free mating of queens can prove a blessing in our present
rather abominable set of circumstances.
 
   For instance, in our immediate metropolitan area (Santa Barbara, CA) we
have had an impressive resurgence of feral colonies, despite the fact that
we know of no beekeepers within this area.  Somehow, these feral colonies
have survived the varroa mite onslaught --- as witnessed today, when I
found that a new swarm had moved into a cavity in the base of an olive tree
(downtown Santa Barbara, corner of Olive and Haley Streets) within the past
week, a cavity repeatedly occupied these past few years.
 
   To repeat:  We apparently have no beekeepers in this rather vast area
(from the ocean to the top of the mountain range), beekeepers that keep
their colonies alive with Apistan strips.  Yet, we now have a great many
really viable feral colonies in this area, colonies (collectively) that
cast out swarms regularly.
 
   If I were a beekeeper in this area, I would raise my own queens ---
primarily by making colony splits --- and hope that the virgin queens so
produced would mate with the plentiful number of drones emitting from the
various feral colonies in this area.  And, no, I would not want the virgin
queens from my colonies mating with drones that have cruised forth from
many managed bee colonies some distance remote from this area.  Those
drones would have come from colonies kept alive with the use of Apistan
strips (a weak strain of bees, so to speak).
 
   Yes, you might recognize the above statements as a bit harsh.  On the
other hand, that is how Nature operates.  Apparently, colonies that survive
without undue human interference might well be our best hope for the
future.
 
                                                                Adrian
 
Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93106
 
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*     "The flaws of a theory never lead to is rejection....Scientists
tolerate       *
*   theories that can easily be demonstrated to be inadequate."
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*                                                      Carl Lindegren, 1966
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