From: [log in to unmask] We here at Bees-under-Glass (sorry, the full name is "Bees-under-Glass Pollination Services Inc.", but many of our clients like to refer to us as just plain "BUG") had a merry chuckle over the breakfast table this morning as we read Peter Kevan's pronouncements about bumblebees and greenhouses. Could this be one of those cases, we thought, where one could say: "his enthusiastic pursuit of ignorance is exceeded only by his willingness to share that ignorance with the rest of the world"?. Anyway, it was a relief to read James Thomson's message later in the day, which went a long way to set the record straight. Yes, far from it being the case that "the matter of continual rearing of reliable [bumblebee] stock has yet to be fully mastered", the actual state of affairs, both in Europe, New Zealand, and here in Canada, is that bumblebee colonies are being raised in enormous quantities, entirely in captivity, at all times of the year. Even here, at Bees-under-Glass, we are currently shipping nearly 300 colonies per month (a trivial amount in comparison with the European giants)--so one wonders who exactly ARE the "experts" that Kevan mentions when he says: "Certainly, providing bumblebees for pollination of the late winter flowering batch of tomato plants presents a problem which is well recognized by the experts here"? Sorry, Peter, providing the bumblebees sure ain't too much of a problem for us, however much it may baffle the "experts" at U of Guelph . . . In fact, it is worth noting that our people at Bees-under-Glass find it, if anything, EASIER to rear bumblebee colonies in the dead of winter than later in the year. This, of course, is because as a commercial operation having to make our living entirely from the bees that we sell, we have found it prudent to specialize in the production of colonies for the very beginning of the spring crop. As you might imagine, it is this which gives us our competitive edge. In response to Dave Inouye's righteous concerns about the safety of wild bumblebee populations (again, this is prompted by a serious error in Kevan's message), perhaps I might be allowed to quote from a letter that I recently wrote to a former colleague: "You should include BioBest among your list of European bumblebee producers--after all, they WERE the first and are certainly either the biggest or (after Koppert) the second biggest. BioBest have made some spectacular claims about their success in selective-breeding of bumble- bees. We, also, have had great success in this area--in fact, the word from Leamington is that the bees which we have supplied since last November (which is when the earliest spring-crop growers started their flowering in Leamington this season) have been more vigorous and active than those which were supplied last year. The difference is that the majority of colonies last year were from wild-caught queens, whereas this year all of our colonies headed by queens which are themselves the progeny of our stock colonies. Notwithstanding this, we are of course always on the lookout for "better" genetic material so, like the Euro- peans, we continue to catch a small proportion of our queens in the field. But, both for Bees-under-Glass as well as for the major Europ- ean producers, it would be wrong to give the impression (as seems to be implied by a recent BEE-L message) that genetic problems are hindering the commercial exploitation of bumblebees. This may be true for some of the minor players, but it has certainly not hampered the dominant prod- ucers." So, even it weren't for the fact that the "explosive" demogra- phy of Bombus makes it very resistant to disasters like the onslaught of Koppert's collecting teams, David should be reassured by the fact that (for purely economic reasons if for no other) massive dependance on wild-caught bumblebee queens is a thing of the past for us as well as for the major European producers. Cantley, Quebec. -- Chris Plowright - via the University of Ottawa Return addresses: via INTERNET: [log in to unmask] via UUCP : ...uunet!mitel!cunews!csi2!uplow!chris