Blane White said, in reply to Barry:

> Ask some cattlemen in your area how they feel about
> someone bringing in cattle from outside the state without
> the proper health records etc.

It is interesting to compare cattle farmers to beekeepers,
just to see how badly we lack public relations of the sort
that they had have in place for decades:

a)  When cattle are stolen or harmed, it is a felony by default, given
     the value of each cow.  Beehives get no such consideration.
     A cow is worth what you can sell it for, and a beehive is similarly
     "worth" the value of the retail production that the hive can generate
     over some finite period.  While the "replacement cost" of a hive is
     often calculated as no more than the cost of a package plus
     woodenware, this does not "replace" the hive in terms of production
     ability during the current season.

b)  The mere risk of a cattle disease can prompt entire classes
     of imported products to be banned outright.  A recent example
     BSE and the complete ban on British beef and sheep products.

c)  A field containing even a known vicious and psychotic bull weighing
     more than many cars can be protected by nothing more than a few
     strands of barbed wire.  These fields are often directly adjacent to
     housing developments, often with the developer leasing land that
     will soon be built upon to a cattle farmer, who, by putting cows on
     the land, makes the adjacent land appear "rural" and "attractive" to
     development homebuyers.  Beehives near the homes of non-beekeepers
     can be ordered moved on the complaint of a single person with an
     irrational fear of bees.

d)  Widespread cattle diseases prompt public officials to deploy the
     National Guard, control all traffic in and out of quarantined areas,
     and so on.  (Again the "Mad Cow" BSE incident in Britain is a
     prime example.)  Beekeepers facing similar devastation get no
     consideration, other than the occasional pun-filled Sunday-
     supplement article in the newspaper.

e)  If a truck carrying cows overturns, animal control and every Vet in
     the area is summoned by police in attempts to save the poor cows.
     If a truck carrying bees overturns, the most "enlightened" emergency
     personnel will kill the survivors by spraying soapy water, giving priority
     to "restoring traffic flow".  Cows are treated as "livestock", while bees
     are treated as a "Hazardous Materials spill".

f)   Cows are clearly cows, and are not blamed for the damage caused
     by deer.  Wasps, yellowjackets, and even Japanese beetles are
     often mistaken for "bees" by otherwise intelligent people.

g)  Beekeepers are not even viewed as "real farmers" by other farmers,
     given that many grandfathers kept a few hives of bees in addition to
     running a thousand-head of dairy cows or whatever.  (My response
     to this view is to ask the farmer if he can lend me a hand during
     spring ear-tagging, and point out that a typical hive has "only"
     40,000 to 60,000 bees to be ear-tagged with a magnifying glass
     and tweezers.)


        jim