Hello Sharon & All,
Sharon wrote:
The argument the pesticide sprayers use - that they were there first - is
 nonsense.  Whether they were or not doesn't matter.  No one has the right
 to kill or harm other living things, or to prevent other people from
 earning a living, no matter what the law may say.

I agree completely BUT most courts don't see it that way.  My brother is a
lawyer.  Let us  use the apple orchards as a example.  There have been apple
orchards which have been at their location for over a hundred years.  Many
people are employed.  The sprays they use are approved by the EPA.  The
beekeeper buys a house across the street and decides to keep bees.  Every
year his bees die from pesticide kills.  In a real Missouri situation a
beekeeper bought across the street from a orchard mainly so his bees could
work the spring apple blossoms.  Excellent place to keep bees *he thought*.
His package bees would expand rapidly then die as the spraying begain.
THAT'S WHY BEES ARE REMOVED FROM THE ORCHARDS.  A fellow beekeeper lost 24
hives at a distance of one and a half miles from a orchard one year.
The orchard growers are friends of mine.
Beekeepers ( and myself)  have tried to talk the orchard growers out of
using the stronger pesticides but to no avail.  I grow organic apples and
can't sell a organic apple sitting next to the orchard growers with
polished, sprayed ,waxed perfect apples.   I have to sell mine added value.
The fact my apples  are organic has not helped me.  I am organic partly
because a huge number of bees are at the home location at various times of
the year. Glad I have only got 70 fruit trees. The orchard growers  use what
works the best for them.  They hire Missouri bees for polination.  We keep
no bees within two miles of the orchards after the bloom is over until late
fall.  Above is the way the problem was resolved. The above case ended up in
the courts with the hobby beekeeper paying big lawyer fees.
 Sharon wrote:
 Public opposition to pesticides is growing.  Beekeepers can take advantage
 of this by publicizing their plight, and highlighting the fate of native
 pollinators as well.

We do three farmers markets a week and sell a small amount of organic
produce along with our hive products. We sell in health food stores. We see
about the same amount of organic buyers and people opposed to pesticides as
we always have seen.  Most  customers are uninformed. We sell to *Nature's
Choice* which is the largest organic food share we know of. At present they
enjoy over a hundred customers which get organic produce each week during
the season. I talk to Organic growers and they say the movement is growing
but at a snails pace. The cities in commuting range of * Nature's Choice*
comprise over a million people. 100 people versus one million makes the
movement very small.
The EPA is the place to stop the use of many chemicals but many still get
approval any way. Justice seems to be the *will of the stronger in the U.S.
today.* Sadly when strong pesticides are banned in the U.S. the crops are
grown in other countries  where the pesticides ARE LEGAL and then the crops
are shipped back to the U.S. to sell. Hmmm.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Odessa, Missouri