Allen

I have to say that I found your post very disappointing.

>the remnants of a supposedly extinct or nearly extinct and reconstituted 
>strain by
use of quarantines and legislation, then we are not talking so much about
conservation, but rather a project in which there is bound to be a conflict 
of ideas
relating to rights, privileges, priorities and restraint of trade.

Remnants?  Extinct?  As I am sure that you know, A.m.m. is found over a 
large part of northern Europe.  It is far from extinct, but is endangered 
due to the activities of humans - not 'nature'.  And what rights do we have 
to endanger a species or sub-species?

>Nature seems to be indifferent or perhaps unaware of its importance...

Would one expect 'nature' to have awareness?

>In nature, over time, we see periodic and seemingly indiscriminate 
>extinctions,
and highly destructive events like earthquakes...

Agree - but these are natural events over which we have no control, not 
intervention by man - which is what we are talking about when discussing 
conservation here.

>so it would seem that "conservation" is a human concept in response to a 
>problem perceived by humans -- and not at all natural.

That depends.  To try to conserve in the face of natural events may be 
wrong - unless, as you say, that which we are trying to conserve has an 
intrinsic value to us (I would, of course, argue that this applies to 
A.m.m.), but here we are trying to conserve something, not from natural 
events, but from the activities of beekeepers who, for their own perceived 
personal gain, are introducing exotic sub-species to an area.  On a broader 
scale, we are all trying to conserve honeybees generally following the 
unnatural disaster of varroa - again caused by man's greed; would you also 
argue against that?

I think that Peter Borst got it right:

>Ideally, conservation would be simply getting out of The Way.

Getting in the way seems to me to be what we do best - by moving genetic 
material (plants, animals - including bees, and diseases) all around the 
world in a way that either would not have happened in nature, or would have 
happened so slowly that there would have been time for things to adapt and 
evolve.

Best wishes

Peter 

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