Regarding Paul Cronshaw posting below my comments.
The big question is why H Shimunaki U.S.D.A. did not mention the
hopeless situation facing U. S. beekeepers when their bees have mites
and viruses which may be being introduced to the U.S. beekeepers
from Canadian Bees entering the U.S. after being imported and
thus introducing and spreading honeybee pest and diseases
with total disregard for the intent of the Honey Bee Act of 1922
which had a strict prohibition against the import of honeybees
to the U.S. for the specic verbadium purpose to "prevent the introduction and
spread of pests and diseases to U.S. honeybees." H. Shimunaki since
his paid consultancy and paid 6 or 8 week vacation for he and his wife to
New Zealand has had no concern for New Zealand bees being allowed
into the U.S. via Canada without regard for the original intent
of the Honeybee Act of 1922. Further H. Shimunaki allowed for a
Federal Registry notification to be published stating that the
U.S.D.A., Secretary of Agriculture had found New Zealand
to be free of any pests and diseases of honeybees, a fraudulent
statement, WHY? Beekeepers of America need new leadership
at the U.S.D.A. with peer review to solve the problems with
honeybees in the United States of America.
pproved-By: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 00:40:07 +0100
>Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
>From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: "America's honeybees are in a bad way".
>To: Multiple recipients of list BEE-L <[log in to unmask]>
>
>THis was forwarded to me by a friend.
>
>SOrry I didn't get the source.
>
>Paul Cronshaw DC
>CYberchiro and Hobby Beekeeper
>
>**************
>
>America's honeybees are in a bad way.
>
>
> Already weakened by 12 years of battling blood-sucking mites, bees
> have been brought to their knees by a soggy spring on the heels of
> many regions' exceptionally cold winter. Experts estimate that more
> than 90 percent of wild colonies have been wiped out nationwide,
> along with a large number of those tended by beekeepers. "It's
> devastated the population of unmanaged bees that are in hollow
> trees and old buildings and things," said Hachiro Shimanuki of the
> U.S. Department of Agriculture's bee research laboratory in
> Beltsville, Md. Shimanuki estimated that this year's
> winter-spring-parasite catastrophe has killed off 30 percent of
> existing colonies of domesticated bees, but emphasized that the
> number varies widely from one state to the next. In Maine, state
> apiary inspectors reported losing 80 percent of kept bees. In
> Wisconsin, beekeepers lost 67 percent of their stock. New York
> estimates losing 60 to 70 percent of its domesticated bees. Even in
> Georgia, where losses are estimated at only 15 percent, hive
> inspectors noted a shortage of bees available to pollinate the
> state's squash crop. But most farmers managed to get their plants
> pollinated some way, Shimunaki said. "I don't think it's been a
> critical shortage," he said. "Nobody has called in a panic and
> said, 'We don't have any bees.' " But those who depend on wild bees
> for pollination are in for a rough summer. Gardeners and small
> farmers who can't afford to rent colonies from beekeepers won't see
> very much in the way of cucumbers, melons, apples, blueberries and
> the dozens of other crops that won't produce without bees. "The
> people probably who will suffer will be backyard types," said Troy
> Fore, executive secretary of the American Beekeeping Federation and
> professional beekeeper in Jesup, Ga. "People who don't go to the
> trouble of renting bees." In the past, many farmers relied on wild
> bees to pollinate their crops. Although these aren't wild in the
> truest sense -- they're really just domesticated colonies that have
> escaped human domination -- they are wild in the sense that they
> don't require tending. But as those populations have declined in
> recent years, bee rental has become a sizeable industry. Keepers
> make $46 million annually renting their charges to farmers, who
> rely on bees to produce an estimated $9.7 billion worth of crops.
> Bees are on the defensive because of two tiny mites, one visible
> only with the aid of a microscope. That parasite, known as the
> tracheal mite, crawls into the breathing tubes of an adult honeybee
> and sucks its blood. But it's the larger, tick-sized varroa mite
> that really puts bees in a bind. It attacks both adults and
> developing eggs by attaching to them from the outside. "The mites
> get onto the adult bees and live off their blood," Shimanuki
> explained. But what they do to young bees is much worse. If
> infested eggs hatch at all, the young can emerge disfigured, often
> lacking a wing or a leg. And because "the honeybee colony does not
> tolerate anybody who is physically disfigured," Shimanuki said,
> worker bees usually devour the crippled insects as soon as they're
> born. The two types of mites, which appeared in the United States
> in the 1980s, have devastated bees around the country. Agriculture
> Department researcher Gerald Loper, who has monitored bees in the
> Oracle, Ariz., area since 1988, has seen them dwindle from 215
> colonies in 1993 to 12 this March. "I think they may well have seen
> their low point this spring," Loper said. This year has been worse
> than most, especially in the Northeast, because of the weather.
> Cold winters wipe out beehives simply because the bees' body heat
> can't keep the hives warm enough. So if a hive's population is
> already reduced by mite infestation, it's that much more
> susceptible to the cold. "You don't have the critical mass to keep
> the hive warm," Shimanuki said. Cool, rainy weather this spring
> just made matters worse by delaying the blooming of plants, he
> added. No blooms meant no nectar, so bees had to live on honey for
> a few weeks longer than they normally would. Many hives probably
> just ran out, Shimunaki said. Remaining colonies will probably
> bounce back, Loper said, but many won't be the same. In the
> colonies that he's studied, Africanized bees, also known as killer
> bees, have shown more resistance to the mites than their honeybee
> counterparts. So the colonies that pull through will be those that
> have hybridized with the invaders from the south, becoming more
> aggressive. Bee experts said that they can't predict how the
> decline in the wild bee population will affect wild plants and the
> animals that eat them. But they guessed that in places such as New
> York and New Jersey, which may have no wild honeybees left, there
> aren't going to be too many wild berries this year.
>
>
Walter & Elisabeth Patton, 27-703 A Ka' ie'ie Rd., Papaikou HI.,96781
Ph./Fax. 808-964-5401 E-Mail hihoney@ilhawaii
Beekeeper and Bed & Breakfast Owner in Hawaii
http://www.alohamall.com/hamakua/hihoney.htm
http://www.alohamall.com/hamakua/beeware.htm
http://www.alohamall.com/hamakua/lamalani.htm
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