JKM>From: Jonathan KP Marshall <[log in to unmask]>
   >Date:         Sun, 25 May 1997 09:47:57 +1200
   >Subject:      Re: Carolina News and Question on  Wet Honey
   >Organization: Taranaki Honey Supplies
 
   >> In NZ they've demonstrated pretty conclusively that it is bird
   >> pollination for the most part, which came as a surprise to me...
 
JKM>Nick I thought that the position is that we should encourage interprises
   >in the bee industry. Most know that bees don't pollinate feijoas, but
   >the oor orchardist that lies awake at night worrying about his/her crop
   >doesn't want to know that. Instead they would rather part with some
   >money to make them feel good, or at least doing as much as they can.
 
What a "feijoas"?
 
JKM>We should help these poor beekeepers that suffer from all the dieseases
   >known to man to make some more money.
 
Yep, I got cancer on the end of my noise and I would like to have the
money to treat it as the bee sting treatment has not helped that much.
 
That pollination coin has two sides, one side says "if the honeybee's
work it charge the farmer for pollinating it", the other says "if the
honeybee's work it charge the beekeeper for the pasture". Here we charge
the farmer for pollination and pay the rancher and government for bee
pasture.
 
I suspect that at least in California the value of the honeybee's to
production agriculture has become bloated over the years, but most
farmers follow each other and do not want to take the chance of not
having honeybee's around just in case their neighbors are right about
their value. The same mentality used in buying pesticides, backed up by
the farm advisors, farm news magazines, and much advertising by the
chemical industry. In tree crops such as almonds it is easy to find
growers who never rent bees and say they are not necessary, but never
have I seen an orchard that did not have bees working during the
bloom.<G>
 
It has never been explained how almonds are pollinated in the old world
which has greater acreage then California and few bees. The crops are
smaller, but not so much in the irrigated areas.
 
ttul Andy-
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