In a message dated 3/4/00 6:50:03 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:

<<   > Propagates the unexamined fallacy of thought that "native pollinators"
in North America are native *everywhere* in North America>>

   Honey bees are characterized by some as an undesirable, non-native
pollinator in the US and elsewhere. The propagation of alternative
pollinators, such as the bumblebee and the Orchard Mason bee, are presented
as desirable because they are "native" (Nabhan and Buchmann, 1996). There may
be many good reasons for alternative pollinators, but a mere preference for
every other pollinating insect as being native over the immigrant honey bees
is absurd. When preference becomes prejudice, arguments for new regulation,
lost markets and lost research funding, it's a travesty.
   In Brian Griffin's The Orchard Mason Bee (2nd edition, 1999), subtitled
"The Life History, Biology, Propagation and Use of a North American Native
Bee," the author writes, "Only Florida and two of its neighbor states do not
have a native population of Orchard Masons," he writes, "but even there the
bees can be successfully propagated by refrigerating them in the winter
months thereby simulating a northern winter."
   If you are raising Orchard Masons in an area where there is not a native
population, then the bees are literally not native, invasive and competing
with whatever native populations exist there.
   There are two subspecies of Orchard Mason. Osmia lignaria propinqua is
native to the United States and Canada west of the Rocky Mountains. It has a
cousin, Osmia lignaria lignaria, east of the Rockies. If you purchase Orchard
Masons from a supplier west of the Rockies and raise them on the eastern
side, you are probably introducing the non-native western bee to your region.
   In "The Forgotten Pollnators," Nabhan and Buchmann warn about the demise
of the managed honey bee industry. The void, they argue, could be filled by
"alkali bees, leafcutter bees and their other native cousins," especially for
pollinating alfalfa.
   Problem is, the preferred pollinator of US alfalfa is Megachile rotundata,
the alfalfa leafcutter bee, which according to Griffin, is a Eurasian bee
that was accidentally introduced on the US East Coast in the 1930s.
   Why does this matter? Research funding and regulation for starters. For
another, let's return to Nabhan and Buchmann:
   "As the National Gardening Association has learned through its surveys,
close to 44 million Americans are involved in flower gardening, 30 million
grow vegetables, and of the 26 million actively landscaping their yards, an
increasing percentage are planting natives. Roughly half of all households in
the United States include at least one person involved in these three
activities, and there is great potential for engaging them, not only with
plants, but with butterflies, bees, and other beneficial 'bugs.'"