> The honey bee is an introduced species.  Should we do like Adriann Wenner
on [Santa Rosa] Island; try to remove them from N. America?

Jerry, that's a Straw Man argument--I've not heard anyone arguing for
extirpation of the honey bee from N. America.
The real question is whether an unnaturally-high stocking rate of
commercial hives--100 or more in a drop--in a conservation area for one or
more native pollinators should be allowed.  This would be akin to not
allowing cattle to be run in a national forest in which a competing native
grazing animal was threatened by the competition from cattle.

I see little biological justification for Xerces' blanket recommendation
that no commercial beekeeping be allowed on *any* conservation lands.  It
would be more reasonable to restrict commercial placement on a case-by-case
basis, taking into account any threatened or endangered species, and honey
bee pollinated invasive plants (as was the issue on Santa Rosa), and a
monitoring process to determine whether that stocking rate of honey bees
adversely affected the protected natives.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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