Re Pete's question about why beekeepers place bees near corn.  Pete, fly
over the Midwest sometime-- I concur with Steve in that for beekeepers in a
number of states, there are virtually no locations not within flight range of corn.

You know, I "get this". I have flown over the country many times. Fly over Upstate NY if you want to see an example of diversity. There is a patchwork quilt of land use. No large acreages dedicated to single crop use. Even the apple growing region is mixed use, with homes and swamps &c. 

But there comes a time when a bee location which was good is no longer suitable. For example, a southern California beekeeper told me of how he would take his bees up into the San Joaquin valley to get a crop of cotton honey. They use to get a pretty good crop. 

Then the "university guys" developed a variety that didn't produce nectar (it's on the stems, by the way). The growers didn't like all the sticky stuff getting into their machinery. The beekeepers weren't told however, they had to find out the hard way that they weren't going to get any more honey from that cotton. So they stopped moving bees onto cotton. 

Similarly, I had several hundred colonies of bees in suburban San Diego. I kept losing locations, and getting pushed into the "back country". Honey yields along the coast were from 200 to 300 pounds per colony. In the dry hills, you might get a honey flow and you might not. I sold out in 1990. 

My friend Tom Glenn was selling open mated queens throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He quit doing so in the 1990s because of the African bees, and switched to selling inseminated queens only. He had to make serious adjustments: reduced income, more indoor work, &c. 

Another California beekeeper I worked for in 1982 saw his business selling package bees tank when the Canadian border closed. He bought a honey producing outfit in the midwest. So what I am saying is: whose responsibility is it? Folks have accused me of blaming the victim. 

These stories above show ways that individuals respond to change. Change your product, move to a better area, go into another field. If the world changes, we have to change with it.

Pete

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