Dear All,
I have been reading the various postings on Bee-L and other newsgroups relating
to bees and other pollinators. Its amazing to see how rumors get starting
and the "information" gets distorted on rumor mills online just as in real
life. We are not honey bee-bashers and
the Forgotten Pollinators Campaign was formed to save/protect/conserve and
restore
 ALL pollinators, including honey bees.

Along with Dr. Gary Nabhan (Director of Conservation Biology, The
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum) co-founded (in 1994) The Forgotten
Pollinators Campaign (later known as the Pollinator Conservation Consortium
and now as Partners in Pollination) as a wakeup call to policy-makers, land
managers, researchers, gardeners and beekeepers. Both Gary and I had seen
advance warning signals that honey bees, native bees and other pollinators
were imperiled and that we could do something about it. Our tri-national
campaign (Canada, U.S.
and Mexico) has been wildly successful. It has been reported about in
hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the world along with helping
put substantial funding into further research on pollinator declines. One
such grant, was from the Turner Foundation to the Arizona-Sonora Desert
Museum. This is an ongoing 3 year grant, of $400K, to the Desert Museum in
Tucson. This grant only deals with one invertebrate, the monarch butterfly
and not bees of any kind.
The players in this U.S./Mexico migratory pollinators effort are a
nectar-feeding bat,
rufous hummingbirds and white-winged doves. This and other FP events/causes
can be found online at:
        http://www.desertmuseum.org/pollinators.html
and     http://www.desertmuseum.org/index.html

Why are we fighting amongst ourselves? We should all be rallying around the
pollinator cause, whether we're talking about honey bees,native bees, birds
or bats.  Fighting and name-calling is not the way to influence
policy-makers and generate much-needed research on habitat fragmentation,
pesticides, mites etc. Astute honey bee beekeepers have already found that
pollination IS the bottom line. It seems as if few beekeepers make all of
their living from selling honey in depressed markets suffering froom
foreign competition. Many beekeepers have adopted the wise strategy of
becoming pollinator services companies providing cost-effective pollination
services using honey bees, bumblebees, mason bees and leafcutter bees. The
need for a mixed "pollinator portfolio" has not diminished. There are many
crops out of more than 100 grown in the U.S. that get the best pollination
from a mixed pollinator strategy of honey bees and native bees. In other
cases (buzz pollination by native bees and about 8% of the world's
flowering crops) need pollination from other bee species, since honey bees
are incable of delivering floral sonication to suchblossoms (blueberries,
cranberries, eggplant, peppers, kiwi fruit, tomatoes).

Mr. Turner has decided that some of his philanthropy should go to
pollinator studies, and for conservation and restoration. His attention
will lead to more funding from public and private organziations to the
pollinator cause, including honey bees. I urge all Bee-L subscribers to
watch "Pollinators in Peril" on TBS channel (cable tv) on Tuesday, March
21st at 10:05 pm
(Eastern Time) and see for themselves. This is not a honey bee-bashing
movie. The plight
of the familar honey bee (mites, pesticides etc.) is clearly made. The film
will do a great deal for promoting honey bees and all pollinators.

Sincerely,

Stephen Buchmann, Ph.D.
co-author and Co-Founder, The Forgotten Pollinators Campaign
(formerl Research Entomologist)
USDA-ARS Carl Hayden Bee Research Center)
Tucson, AZ