On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, T & M Weatherhead wrote [among other things]:
 
> Let me put some facts to the list.
>
> Hawaii claims that they do not have KBV but I am informed that there has =
> been no disease surveys done in Hawaii and that they have, in the viruses=
> , sacbrood but they do not know what else.  Hawaii stopped Australia from=
>  transhipping live bees through Hawaii because of viruses about 1994 whic=
> h, by co-incidence, was the same time that Hawaii gained access to Canada=
>  for queen bees.
 
The above "facts" are a bit less than completely accurate. First, Hawaii's
commercial beekeepers and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, which has
responsibility for apiary inspections, have never claimed that Hawaii is
free from Kashmir bee virus. Kashmir virus has never been found in Hawaii
because no comprehensive survey has been made to detect it. At present,
sacbrood is the only honey bee virus known to occur in Hawaii.
 
Second, the proximate reason for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
decision to halt Australian bee transshipments through Hawaii in 1993 was
not because of the bee viruses known to occur in Australia, but because of
the sloppy way in which many of the Australian bee shipments of earlier
years had been prepared, allowing for the escape of bees at Honolulu
International Airport on a number of occasions.
 
Lastly, Hawaii's queen breeders gained access once again to the Canadian
market in 1995, after agreeing to perform, in 1993 and 1994, unreasonably
exhaustive surveys for parasitic mites (100% of colonies sampled for
tracheal mite, 15% sampled for varroa). Hawaii has been closed to honey
bee imports (including those from the continental U.S.) since 1985, and
mite surveys have been made twice yearly ever since. Parasitic bee mites
have not been found in Hawaii.
 
*************************************************************************
Tom Culliney    Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industry,
1428 South King St., Honolulu, HI 96814, U.S.A.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Telephone: 808-973-9528
FAX: 808-973-9533
 
"To a rough approximation and setting aside vertebrate chauvinism, it can
   be said that essentially all organisms are insects."--R.M. May (1988)
"Bugs are not going to inherit the earth. They own it now. So we might as
   well make peace with the landlord."--T. Eisner (1989)