Greetings list,

 Coupla questions;

For Randy Oliver
     How does; “some degree of risk that the pests are present is inherent 
in the use of 
sampling procedures for inspection” arrive at; “once the missed pathogen 
inevitably slips through?"  In other words how do you jump from a “degree 
of risk” to an   “inevitability”?   Also, I would like to know what is of 
more risk to you as a pollinator of almonds, viruses that come from 
Australia or the ones that come from Michigan via Florida with stopovers in 
Idaho and Arizona with mutations along the way? 

For Jim Fischer  
     In the quest for freedom from risk, at what point does the level of 
certainty required become a de facto ban on imports?  If what Peter Detchon 
said about the rigor of inspections being done on the Aussie side is true, 
and then on top of that you add very rigorous inspections on the American 
side would you not be well into the red as far as profitability goes for 
imported Australian bees?  
     Also, who has more at stake in making sure no bad stuff gets through, 
the people whose livelihood depends on selling bees to U.S. beekeepers or 
overworked and under funded U.S. federal inspectors like the ones who were 
watching toys from China?  Let’s assume that the mother of all pathogens 
threatening bee kind is not more likely to come from without the U.S. than 
from within.  I mean who’s to say a colony of San Diego Africanized bees 
carrying some deadly virus won’t hitch a ride on one of those Princess 
Cruise ships headed for the South Pacific, fattening up on leftover 
maraschino cherry juice all the way?  Honestly, I’m not for or against 
importing bees from Australia.  I just think that if you don’t want any 
risk at all from imports, then you should ban them, period, end of 
discussion.  But then how safe will you be?  It’s clear to me from this 
discussion that no one knows what the risk is, or how to assess it.  But 
neither does anyone know how much safer we are if we do ban imports, 
because no one knows if the risks from bees and bee pathogens that are 
already here is at least as great as that from Australian imports.  The 
reason we don’t know these things is because it would cost to much to find 
out.  That is also the reason you will most likely not see a rigorous 
inspection regime accompanying imports of honey bees.  Australian package 
producers would just go out of business.  I think.      

I Guess that’s more than a coupla questions

Steve Noble

Go Rockies.  sniff… sniff….      

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