>Not too long ago Jerry Fries posted:
>
>JF>In America we already have every critter in existnce. Protecting ourselves
>  >from mites is like closing the barn door after the horse is out. We should
>  >close our borders to protect the rest of the world from us. This former is
>  >an attempt at humor but does have a point.
>
>The OLd Drone has been quit a few days but has some editorial opinion to
>share based on personal observations he and others have made.
> I was flatered to be quoted by the old drone, In fact the following
>editorial by him could not be better expressed.  _My humble attempt_ at
>humor  Is most elequently _stated__here in this text.
 
Jerry Fries_ ___ _   _ ___ ___
_   _
> / _ \|  _ \_ _| \ | |_ _/ _ \| \ | |  Not to bee confused with BS
>| | | | |_) | ||  \| || | | | |  \| |  or the Law from High...
>| |_| |  __/| || |\  || | |_| | |\  |
> \___/|_|  |___|_| \_|___\___/|_| \_|  Contrary comments invited!
>
>Well, not sure we have all of them critter's yet, or at least we have
>not found them all in our hives. Give it time...
>
>When one puts the detection of the ex officio importation of bees in
>prospective with the real problems regulators in the US and much of the
>world have with the detection of illegal drugs and persons illegally
>crossing the boarders every single day and night it is easy to believe
>that a 'Crossed Eyed Red Queen Bee from Timbuktu carried in a plastic
>cage with food and a dozen worker bees would be almost impossible to
>detect at the most sophisticated fully armed boarder inspection station.
>Each of us must recognize that these things do happen and try to weigh
>the risk to at least we who are beekeepers, if nobody else, of something
>we have no real control over and the cost and/or the benefit to all or
>the lack of benefit by denying that honeybees one way or another do make
>it into our countries and what we may be giving up by not making it
>possible to satisfy the natural curiosity and interest of many
>beekeepers to bring the same or better stock into any country by having
>more liberal bee quarantine laws that would or could regulate that flow
>in a matter that could protect all interests. More restrictive laws or
>more enforcement IMHO is not and has not been the answer and will only
>serve to polarize beekeepers against beekeepers and paint us all with
>the same public brush as outlaws.
>
>And for a fact it is well know to all who are into the AI or artificial
>breeding of bees that the male bee genetic material can be shipped via
>mail from anyplace in the world with a very low probability of detection
>by regulatory authorities in a regular or coin size envelope the vile or
>vile's protected by a thin piece of plastic foam or cardboard. Is it the
>normal everyday experience, NO, not in the US, but it has been done more
>then once with as far as I have ever heard no detection. Mated queen
>bees can also be shipped that way with O loss. It is a violation of the
>United States Law to do so.
>
>The majority of beekeepers in the US do know the laws if they do any
>traveling at all, but here in California we have at times had one or two
>that did not and by chance have been caught and had their exotic bee
>imports destroyed after they were well established in their hives. But
>this is the exception and for the most part the bee importation laws
>work as well as they do not because of the bee police but because those
>in the bee industry who could benefit the most do know the risks, and
>maybe more important the fact there has not been a real measurable
>economic difference in the bee stocks of the world. The MEAT in the
>BeeBurger is/has been, and may always be in the quality and quantity of
>the bee pasture and not the breeding stock. If there was such a
>difference in bees there for sure would not be a boarder wall big or
>high enough or a government powerful enough to keep beekeepers from
>capitalizing on it as we truly are as a group very responsible but also
>very resourceful at dealing with the small beekeeping problems presented
>us each day. This is not to say that there is not good bee stocks that
>many in the US would like to have a close up and personal hands on look
>at, but because there are, and some right this day that beekeepers want
>very badly to work with, so I have heard and been told. It is very
>apparent that if something is not done to have more regulated
>introductions of new stock that interest beekeepers that in time they
>will quit asking...and act on their own.
>
>What about political boarders and bee barriers?
>
>As one who has loved and lived on the Mexican boarder I want to add
>that all the laws man wants to make is not, will not, and did not keep
>my own honey bees or others from flying into Mexico to collect large
>amounts of nectar and pollen from plants growing many miles into that
>sovereign territory and that highway in the sky is a two way street and
>in fact the natural flow in some boarder areas for water and bees is
>from Mexico into the United States and both do make that trip with NO
>aid from beekeeper or interference from heavily armed boarder guards. I
>assume it is the same on our northern boarder I hope without the show
>of arms we are daily exposed to on the southern boarder.
>
>Funny things do happen to beekeepers in far off lands.
>
>I know of one world class bee breeder from the US whom I will not name
>but is well know and, I am sure there have been more, who was visiting
>officially another bee breeder in northern Europe looking for different
>stock to test legally in the US. He selected some material that looked
>promising and made all local official arrangements for shipment on
>receipt by that foreign government of the reams of US quarantine
>documents that are required by the US so he could legally import this
>stock into the US for advanced study. Within a few days after a few
>aside trips he returned home to the US to find his dream bees had
>arrived via air mail before he had a chance to fill out the documents
>with NO clearance problems at all. (Something was lost in the
>translation between beekeepers). At the same time I have in the past
>talked with two different one time quarantine station employees from
>different countries, that told me of their experiences with legally
>imported queen bees in their countries that were deliberately allowed to
>die because of bee disease phobia and the politics of upper management,
>this was BM or "Before Mites" or any other well hyped problems were
>detected in US bees.
>
>Others have said it before but it must be repeated and that is because
>we beekeepers in the US still have some faith, (so I have heard), in our
>countries legal systems down to our hard working local bee regulators,
>this is not the same in all other countries and often the one's that
>make the biggest case for their own system are the one's that are
>circumvented the most by the experienced citizens of their own country.
>The guys with the biggest ads in the Sunday papers don't always have the
>best quality products.
>
>I also know from personal experiences of the past that almost every
>northern European beekeeper and those from other places that I have had
>the pleasure to meet with in the US has offered to send me the world's
>best queen bees ex officio and I am sure I am not the only one that is
>singled out for this favor between beekeepers. I was tempted but never
>succumbed and I was proud of that then but have softened somewhat since
>and today support a increased flow of regulated bee genetic material and
>bees not because I know of a super bee but just because it makes sense
>to have renewed breeding material to chose from. Some of the offers I
>received in the past I am sure were politically motivated as they all
>seemed to take great pleasure in anything they could do to thwart their
>own hard line governments attitudes on just about everything and always
>were sent home well supplied with blue genes and PlowBoy magazines, (or
>maybe it was PlayBoy), in violation of their own laws and assisted by
>this and other US citizen as we have no laws here preventing such
>activity for items we find so common.
>
>Changes are coming....sooner or later!
>
>Because of the changing US laws which allow for our NAFTA partners a
>increasing free flow of truck movement into our country to our markets
>and us a shot at theirs there is good chance in time for a free movement
>of honeybees from both Mexico and Canada for the use in commerce,
>pollination and/or honey production. But as long as all partners are
>satisfied with the present rule making procedures there will be no
>effort to effect change...Unless maybe those who depend on honeybees to
>pollinate their crops see a need before we beekeepers do. The next move
>on package bees and queens produced in the US for export to Canada is
>up to the Canadians and because of the time between the closing of the
>boarders and when they are likely to open again, if ever, they may find
>the producers will not be able to supply their needs at least at the
>post WW II prices all enjoyed for generations in the past. What happens
>in the future to the south will depend on many factors including in
>Mexico some internal changes in other areas of government that today
>would preclude the free movement of bees between countries at least the
>movement south. As far as the risks of the introduction of undiscovered
>pests, genes, or you name it, nature will in time level that playing
>field as many in the US have learned after paying a high price for a
>someday soon to be announced that three not two unsuccessful government
>quarantines on honeybees and their pests and genetic differences, are
>no more then real examples of what government quarantines should not be
>about. By all reports the Canadian beekeepers has without much aid from
>man received the bad news in their own bee hives and in time will
>recognize that if it is bad for one we all can expect to pay the price
>as far as the biological and genetic pests in honeybees go and if some
>want to blame in all on their beekeeping brothers in the US so bee it,
>but few beekeepers here in the US blame our problems on Mexico or even
>on a dedicated Brazilian bee scientist who received advanced education
>at our own UC Davis or the beekeepers in SA who have for years made
>regular importations of bee stock from Asia who may easily have had a
>few hitch hiking vampire mites of one size or another. It is not even
>all that clear if the varroa mites are from Asian stains or both
>European and Asia.
>
>Is there more bad news to come?
>
>I am sure that in time we will have had a look at all that is bad, but I
>am also as sure that we will overcome the bad news we are receiving this
>day and will do the same into the future because beekeepers are all a
>special people and really do have some strange abilities in common that
>is yet not been identified but may be some broken genes passed on
>randomly from generation to generation that enables beekeepers to be
>beekeepers when most other are not and to make good to spite the bad
>without despoiling our neighbors bed, sometimes called "infectious
>opportunism".
>
>                        ttul, the OLd Drone
>
>BTW. US friends, Just a day ago I tuned into the Ross Peerow political
>road show and heard his degrading remarks about "not hiring a beekeeper
>to build a skyscraper", I agreed with all his degrading "facts" on
>President Clinton a real lame duck winner he is not, but would tell
>Peerow that he better have a closer look at who his engineers really are
>as from one beekeeping family I know real personal there are two sons, a
>daughter and two son in laws that are all professional engineers as well
>as experienced in the beekeeping life and for sure he has more then once
>passed under or over one of the highway bridges the daughter designed,
>operated a computer the son in law designed the INTEL Inside chip for,
>or run his cheep car on the oil the youngest son tested in the Texas
>engineering lab he works for and could be using the gasoline the other
>son in law created in the petrol engineering lab he works in. Makes no
>never mind to me as I voted for DOLE anyway...OPUS, one son did go bad
>after earning his engineering degree with high honors, he got the silver
>cup, 2nd or 3rd in his class for smarts and then chose to be the third
>generation commercial beekeeper in his family. Amazing all of these kids
>were deprived and reared without the benefits of television....but all
>took their turns in the honeyhouse and bee yards and still had time to
>read a book or two.
>
>11396
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>(w)Opinions are not necessarily facts. Use at own risk.
>
>---
> ~ QMPro 1.53 ~ Two wrongs don't make right, but three rights make a left