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Subject:
From:
Andy Nachbaur <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 9 Jun 1996 05:15:00 GMT
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NW>From: Nick Wallingford <[log in to unmask]>
  >To: Multiple recipients of list BEE-L <[log in to unmask]>
  >Date:         Sun, 9 Jun 1996 10:50:44 +1100
  >Subject:      NZ/Hawaii...
  >Organization: Nat Beekeepers Assn of NZ
 
NW>***************************
  >Many readers of this list do not want to read more of this issue.
 
NW>I propose that all related postings use the Subject: of this message
  >"NZ/Hawaii" to allow those who are NOT interested to delete without
  >reading...
NW>***************************
 
Hoy Bee End Nick?, <Spanish for "How You BEEn?">
 
It would bee far better to stop the tread, renaming it does little but
confuse some of us who read and hang on every word posted anyway. The
way you stop the post is to take it person to person via e-mail or just
stop responding and all agree to disagree, which is the way it is going
to end in any case, but if you want to be disagreeable I am sure someone
will oblige the challenge besides myself.
 
California bees are better then any others anyway, and the proof is,
ask any California beekeeper, California regulator, California educator,
California scientist, or the dozen or so presidents of any of the local
California bee association, the California Honey Board, or the
California Apiary Board, the California Department of Food and
Agriculture, the California Almond Growers, the Gov., And most of all
the thousands of beekeepers from every corner of the road that has come
to California to bee trained by our 500+ commercial beekeepers or to
attend our University of California and study High Beekeeping in the
last 50 years or so. I don't know of one New Zealand beekeeper who has
come to California to keep bees, or show us how to do it but there may
even be one of those stuck around here someplace as there have been
dozens from every other part of the world who have set up in the bee
business here and many have stayed with it, beekeepers from Holland to
China all here because California bees are the best, it can't be the
bee pasture it all burned up two months ago.
 
I know I have had a New Zealand'er or two on the pay book in the past and
I am sure at the time they would have said around pay day that
California bees are the best in the whole world and I was A-OK and the
worlds greatest boss if not the best beekeeper.
 
NW>First, a reminder that the list of pests and diseases referred to
  >are not those 'known to exist' in New Zealand.  It is the complete
  >list of everything that has ever been found into the past.  One might
  >be very hard pressed to find some of them again...
 
WOW, is that a stretch, I don't believe that you believe that, but if
you or anyone else does I have some nice clean bees in California that
I would be more then happy to export to New Zealand. Sure they once
suffered from AFB, EFB, mites of every size and color, and virus
named and un-named, and maybe even a few bad genes in their shady
past, buy they don't show any signs of any of this today,,,could
be because they are all dead?
 
Honeybees suffer from pests, predators, and disease...this is a fact and
one that is global and should be accepted as a fact of keeping bees. New
Zealand may be proud of it bees and good on them for it but in reality
their honeybees are not anything special compared to any honeybees from
any other area of the world. All the bee talk in the world and the best
bee science New Zealand or any place else can afford to buy will not
change the fact. Pay my way over and I will write a honest report on how
good your bees are, and pay me enough and I will make them good as gold.
At the same time I am more then sure that New Zealand's honeybees are
the one's that are best suited to beekeeping in New Zealand, but not
knowing their roots, I can't say for sure but,, I suspect they are no
different from the roots of the bees kept in this area of California by
a few generations or so.
 
NW>> Note the claim that NZ is free of EFB is doubted by all old time bee
  >> keepers that I have interviewed.
  ><snip>
  >> The NZ folks know they are weak in their claim about EFB.
 
NW>By any and all recognised scientific, practical and regulatory means
  >of measurement, over a long period of time, by many beekeepers,
  >advisory staff, inspectors and scientists, NZ states that there is no
  >EFB here.  Mr Patton feels differently.  I would simply ask that he
  >supply some evidence apart from his feelings.
 
Well Nick, if you once had it and its can't be found we would expect
as expressed in earlier paragraph above you would not count it anyway
and if you did find it I would not be concerned myself, but putting any
kind of empathizes on the absence of any honeybee disease is a real
invitation to disaster as some will say "why get bees that may die the
first time they are exposed to something they have never experienced
before" and from some reports losses were very high in Canada the winter
of 95-96 which may still be on up there, and could it be the impact of
importing stock from New Zealand for several years is catching up with
the Canadian beekeepers gene pool? After all we all know everything
runs backwards in New Zealand anyway. Toilets flush up or is it the
vortex that runs backwards, summer in the winter, and boring green all
year around with more mountain maggots then people.<G> *Mountain maggots
are what cattlemen in Western Colorado call the sheep.
 
But in any case I don't doubt that you do not have what is referred to as
EFB, I believe you! But I also believe as others may also believe that
what is called EFB is an expression of several other pathogens and not
specifically the EFB itself, and then it would not be found if you kept
enough TM or other antibiotics in your bees or your bees lacked the right
number of different pathogens at the same time or in the right order. I
hope you never get it as it can cause very significant losses and here
requires some antibiotic treatment prior to brood rearing to prevent it
getting out of hand.
 
In any case I enjoy your many practical beekeeping posts and if you want
to be prideful and nationalistic thats OK with me, but please excuse
others who also would like to do the same and God forbid any of those
New Zealand bees escape into the pristine bee pastures of Hawaii...
 
                         ttul Andy-
 
 
 
(c) Permission is granted to freely copy this document
in any form, or to print for any use.
 
(w)Opinions are not necessarily facts. Use at own risk.
 
---
 ~ QMPro 1.53 ~ ... A comely olde man as busie as a bee.

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