Aaron:  I stayed in Tennessee until Saturday, visiting beekeepers and queen
breeders.
      You should have been at ABF yourself to gain firsthand info, but I will
give you my point of view.  As you might expect, the small hive beetle "stole
the show" due to its newness, the apparent spread EVEN TO VERY NORTHERN
STATES, the concern about the use of coumaphos to control it because the EPA
IS IN TOTAL (I repeat, TOTAL!) control over its use anywhere in the U.S.
Coumaphos can be used against the small hive beetle and the fluvalinate
resistant varroa mite, only Florida. South
Carolina, Minnesota, and ???? have been approved for a Section 18 exemption
which is only good for 1 year, ending Jan. 1, 2000.  Only Mann Lake is
licensed to sell it and each state is assigned a CERTAIN number of strips it
is allowed to purchase.
I will write more details within the next 30 days after I "clear" them for
publication.  Although important, there was a tremendous amount of GOOD STUFF
& NEW STUFF at the 5 day meeting.
    1) There was a panel of experts from most segments of the honey production
and sales area, and lots of questions from the floor, regarding the new
changes in the
Honey Board Act and support money.  It was apparent that there was TREMENDOUS
support for the Honey Board; and those in opposition were ignored.
    2) A year ago, 10 queen breeders acting on their own pledged a gift of
money for the sale of each queen or package of bees to a QUEEN BREEDER
RESEARCH FUND.  This money is to be used for research on many things, e. g.
effect of medicinal chemicals
on the queens and drones sexual organs; improving drone populations for
breeding,
working out problems with post office and other shipping carriers.
    3) There were 12 Educational Workshops covering many subjects.  I gave
two:
Upgrading from beeHAVER to beeKEEPER, and Optimizing  Your Honey Production.
I had 56 at the first and 42 at the second.  I was told that ALL the workshops
were
well attended.
    4) There were several SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS taking up subjects
interesting to their special needs: Commercial Beekeepers; Package Bee and
Queen Breeders;
Honey Producers and Honey Packers; Research, Inspection and Extension
Specialists; Basic Beekeeping Refresher Course.  These were extremely well
attended and I split my time between the Queen breeders and Researchers
    5)  ANYTHING concerning RESEARCH about any bee problem was the Number 1
interest of most attendees.  The Research committee (to which I was assigned)
covered umteen subjects, but of great interest to me was a proposal by Sue
Cobey
"to modify the 1922 existing law to allow HIGHLY CONTROLLED importing of
selected species of bees or queens into the U. S. for use in UNIVERSITY or
queen breeder research ONLY.  This was approved for an ABF Resolution to be
offered to the government.  Our present U.S. genetic stock has been reduced to
smallness by too much inbreeding.
     6)  Dr. Shimanuki has been assigned a new job: Technical Liaison to
Industry, and Dr. Mark Feldlaufer replaces Shim as Research Leader at
Beltsville Bee Research
Laboratory.  We had a 4 hour review of beekeeping research at USDA-ARS
Laboratories presented by SHIM, MARK, Dr. Rinderer of Baton Rouge Lab, Dr.
Bill Wilson of Weslaco Lab, Dr. Erickson of Tucson Lab and these various works
were
summarized by the NEW HEAD of the Staff, Dr. Karl Narang.  When I see the
MINOR
amount of money given for bee research by our government, I get "sick".  I
guess we won't get more money until our legislators can't buy fruit or some
vegetables in our grocery stores because of lack of honey bee pollination.
Thank God, there was no money problems when I was developing atomic bombs back
in 1944-45, or I might be speaking Japanese today.
    7) The Honey Producers association held its annual meeting a few days
prior to the ABF meeting, so many of them came to the ABF meeting for several
days on their way back home.  The Apiary Inspectors had their annual meeting
in our hotel the last two days of our meeting, and so many of them joined with
us.
     Aaron, how can you NOT learn the correct things and UN-learn your
mistaken ideas when you go to an ABF meeting and are surrounded by 600 TOP
EXPERTS from every segment of beekeeping?  This, it itself, should be enough
reason for anyone truly interested in bees, honey, or pollination to attend
and LEARN, LEARN, LEARN.
[Perhaps the package bee people don't want me to say that because informed
people
would no longer need many package bees since their own bees would be alive and
increasing.]
     I missed chatting with you.  I will write more about the small hive
beetle about February 1st; but meanwhile, don't let anyone suggest to you that
it won't be a problem in Maine or Minnesota because of the cold, or that
apistan, formic acid,
or essential oils will take care it, or that coumaphos can be gotten anywhere
or that it can be easily used - 'CAUSE IT AIN"T SO!  Just to "nip it in the
bud",  FROM THE PODIUM, LOUD AND CLEAR, Shim announced that "Yes, small hive
beetles are a major problem EVERYWHERE, and anything contrary to that was a
misinterpretation
or words taken out of context".
     Yesterday was 54 degrees.  I took off inner covers and checked my
colonies, and all are alive and well.  I start feeding 1:1 in two weeks to
stimulate queen laying.
                                                                                                                George