At 06:00 PM 11/30/98 -0700, you wrote:
 
>e-thread on BEE-L before it gets out of hand. I was shocked to see
>how the Arizona Daily Star reporter misquoted, or at the very least
>misrepresented what I said. So, please let me state my case.
 
Really happy to hear/read that from you and I would suggest you give them
written hand outs in the future as their history of hyping everything
negative about honeybees is well documented in the archives at
http://beenet.com/bnews.htm and because I have been also getting some mail
on my opinion of what I read in or as many have said "into" the story.
 
>even though honey bees are "Jills" of all trades, they don't visit
>certain nectarless flowers (e.g. tomato blossoms) for which, we thankfully
>have bumblebees.
 
Is this your opinion on tomato blossoms or a scientific fact?
 
In this area honeybees DO visit tomato blossoms for pollen and many a
beekeeper has suffered unexpected losses from chemicals applied to tomato
fields in bloom miles away from their bees or ask any tomato field
irrigator can tell you what bees work on the farm. I have some slides of
this if I can find them I would be happy to supply you a copy at cost or a
signed copy of your book.
 
I also have read of honeybees being used in tomato pollination under glass
but I must admit I myself discounted that at the time as one of those "U
show me" things. But by all accounts and my own experience feeding bees
sugar can at times can force them to seek proteins from sources they
normally would not touch and in a glass house it could be the case with
some varieties of tomato's. Of course they would have to produce pollen
even if they don't produce nectar.
 
In my early beekeeping experience I kept bees in an area the had thousands
of acres of cannery peas blooming each year and I knew that blooming peas
were not attractive to honeybees as my bees never trespassed in a pea
field. Many years later I had bees in an area that was growing peas for
seed for export to Europe and produced an unexpected nice crop of pea
honey. I learned that old world peas have nectar and new world peas don't.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
http://beenet.com
Left Coast, Republic of America
 
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