>  I don't feel the practice is sustainable.

I'll agree wholehearted with Jeff Pettis on 
the specific point made by Jeff in the article, 
which seems to imply that cross-continent trips
from Florida to the Almond groves of CA are a bit
much when combined with a typical east-cost 
pollinating run from South to North as spring springs.

But neither Jeff nor myself would ever agree with the
generalized indictment of migratory beekeeping that 
has been a consistent theme in Brian's postings from 
his completely comfy non-migratory operation.

I wrote something that has been picked up and reprinted
in multiple languages in far-flung places, and it starts 
out like this:

"So, you wanna know about beekeeping? 
These days, its really all about almonds.   
They make us do insane things. 
No, that's not right, the money makes us do insane things. 
But the almonds are where the money is. 
Almonds have done to beekeeping what cocaine did to Miami."
http://bee-quick.com/reprints/udunno.pdf

 
But the massively misinformed idea that "migratory 
beekeeping" in general is anything new, or puts 
some new "stress" on the bees is laughable in the 
extreme, given that migratory beekeeping has been 
around since at least 3,000 BC or so.  Back then,
they were moving hives around on donkeys.  Anyone 
who has ever tried to ride a donkey can confirm 
that this would be several orders of magnitude more 
"stress" than the modern approach of lifting pallets 
smoothly with Swinger Forklifts onto flatbed trucks 
with air-ride shock absorbers, riding on smooth 
interstates fast enough to provide a cool breeze 
to the hives.

Anything that's been going on since 3,000 BC has clearly
earned the designation "Sustainable". I can't think of 
many other businesses that have lasted for 5,000 years.  :)

The only reason researchers have been saying that beekeepers 
should "reduce stress", was that they still don't have any 
better advice, and are fumbling for something, anything to 
say in response to the question "what can beekeepers do 
about CCD?".  

They certainly did not want to admit the unvarnished truth, 
which is that "All we can do here is watch hives die".
("Saving Private Ryan", 1998)

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