> Last I spoke to Randy, he was going to contact Tobias for clarification on
this point [the effect of feeding sucrose]...Randy, did you find anything
out?

I sent him an email in December, but he never answered.  I just resent it.

Dean,  what bothers me are your continued implications that we are causing
these new plagues to be visited upon us because of something new that we are
doing.  Back in the day, most of the hobby beekeepers that I knew would have
been considered "organic" beekeepers, yet their bees still came down with
AFB at a higher rate than I see in my operation today.

I ran my own operation for nearly 20 years without feeding sugar syrup or
pollen supplement.  In fact, prior to the arrival of varroa, my management
would essentially have qualified as "organic" beekeeping--natural wax
foundation, no miticides, virtually no pesticide exposure, no feeding, rare
use of the single antibiotic OTC, bees kept on good nonagricultural pasture
for 11 months of the year (almonds being the exception, but we didn't have
any problems in almonds back then).

However, AFB was a considerable problem back then.  So much so that I
selected for bees with hygienic behavior and sold them commercially in the
early '80's, so that I didn't have to use any OTC.

Randy Oliver

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm