Brian Fredericksen wrote: >You have attached too much importance to the economics of the problem and forgot that keeping bees healthy and alive should be the first priority of commercial beekeeping. Its not and that the crux of the problem here. Keeping bees healthy and alive has always been the most important thing to beekeepers. You can't be a beekeeper with dead bees. The issue is: how best to do it. You claim that large scale operators are their own worst enemy, but you offer no evidence nor any proof of this claim. These people are responsible for pollinating the nations food supply because they will go where they are needed. The queen and package industry meets the phenomenal demand for new bees every spring. All of these folks have just as much right to make a living as you and as they are essential to the modern food supply, they have a perfect right to ask for help in solving some of their most pressing problems. The world's problems are created by all of us and will only be solved by all of us working together. While you are dodging the question of what beekeepers (large and small) are doing wrong, many of us are trying to get to the bottom of this. I talked to a large scale beekeeper who does NOT have the problems that others do to try find out what he does differently. He doesn't have CCD, nosema, or hives crashing due to high mite loads. Several key practices: he doesn't buy bees or queens, has done his own queen rearing for 50 years. Doesn't rent bees for pollination. Moves bees in a refrigerated truck to avoid the stress of long hauls. Takes his bees South for the winter. pb ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************