I feel that at some point we need to draw a line.  Taken to the extreme,
your suggestion would mean that no one should try to place an apiary in
Iowa or Illinois.

Not so. I didn't suggest nor imply any such thing. In fact, many of the beekeepers from those regions are saying that they are not having problems. But the question is this: when does one party have the right to insist on a specific behavior on the part of the other? When does the beekeeper have the right to dictate the practices of farmers? The farmer is far less mobile than the beekeeper. Most of the time, the beekeeper is a guest or renter on the land. 

Obviously, bees are protected by laws. If the laws are inadequate, they should be changed. But as we have said so many times before, for beekeepers to become adversarial would be to risk being unwelcome in agricultural areas. You may not be allowed to place bees near crops, because the growers don't want to risk lawsuits. Finally, common farming practices (GMO, seed treatments, etc.) should not be banned on the basis of fear and hysteria.

When bees are essential to crops, then there is a system of give and take. The beekeeper brings in hives, the grower pays. A contract is drawn, the beekeeper guarantees hive strength, the grower doesn't kill the bees with some spray. After the bloom, the grower wants the bees out of there, because he or she may need to begin spraying the crop. Now, if a beekeeper knows this and remains in the vicinity, whose fault is that?

I am not really taking a position here, I am trying to point out that it is not cut and dried, and the polarization of these issues into us and them. There needs to be give and take. The beekeeper is the one who is mobile, a guest. The landowner has the right to carry out his labors as he sees fit, so long as laws are not being broken in terms of drift, environmental contamination, etc. Conjecture, threats and hyperbole have no place in such a discussion.

Pete

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