Waldig asked if there are any restrictions on keeping Africanized bees in
the US.

Florida and Georgia have some kind of protocol concerning maintaining hives
that are overly agressive.  AFAIK, Florida's part of this is not enforced
and, perhaps more accurately, there may not be any enforcement provisions.
Florida has a dilemna.  On the one hand widespread fears of honey bees may
keep tourists and/or retirees away.  On the other hand the Orange industry
is very important and some 80% of the crop requires pollination.  I believe
that growers do not pay for pollination.  Jerry Hayes, et. al. seem to be
doing a great job at managing the potentially conflicting interests.

Georgia, of course, want to protect their queen breeding industry.

NYS, where I am located, has some sort of crazy provision that allows Ag &
Markets to destroy (or cause to be destroyed) hives that are so agressive
that they are deemed to be a threat to the public safety.  This provision,
like some others, was sneaked into legislation (or rules and regulations)
without prior discussion with the major beekeeping groups in the state.  As
a practical matter samples of bees from *some* extremely agressive hives are
sent for analysis of whether they are Africanized.  If they are so deemed,
the hive has to be destroyed.

DUH!  Why only those hives deemed to be Africanized and not those hives that
are equally agressive and are reported back as xx% (less than 50%)
Africanized?  Why not equally agressive hives regardless of whether they are
deemed to be Africanized?

DUH!  Why does THE STATE (aka Big Brother) have to tell beekeepers to
destroy overly-agressive hives?  If they will not act responsibly, let
beekeepers keep them...and be sued for all they are worth by someone who is
hurt/suffers damages/killed!  What are we coming to as a society when we
need THE STATE to assure we take responsibility for our actions?

DUH!  And what irritates me the most is that while we have 30-40 beekeepers
who winter in Florida every year, and inevtibly 'bring back' Africanized
hives, and those beekeepers know just exactly which hives those are, THE
STATE does not go looking for them as they (the beekeepers so mentioned) are
(mostly) treated with kid gloves.  These hives are throwing off swarms and
their drones are going their job.  But THE STATE would rather involve
themselves in more foolish matters such as searching for AFB.

As you can tell, the NYS Inspection Program is not my favorite subject.

Lloyd

-- 
Lloyd Spear
Owner Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacture of equipment for round comb honey sections,
Sundance Pollen Traps, and producer of Sundance custom labels.
Contact your dealer or www.RossRounds.com

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************