>Me: despite what James Fischer says, beekeeping is not  plagued by
>more problems than other agriculture.
>James: I said nothing so silly. What I said was limited to ANIMALS.

I am sorry if I misquoted you James. What I meant and said poorly is
that beekeeping is no worse off than other sectors of agriculture,
including animals. I took a short course on pesticide application,
required by the state because I occasionally use pesticides on my job.

I don't know enough about the different animals to really say which
has more or less, but evidently they all have parasites and some are
real ugly. It *seemed to me* that we are all in the same boat vis a
vis pesticide application. Everyone is doing it.

The course gave very strong emphasis to IPM : using economical
mechanical controls like cleanliness. Chemicals are only to be used
when all else fails. And they must be carefully targeted for the pest
and to avoid contamination of the environment and the commodities.

Nothing controversial there, I warrant. We all look back wistfully at
a time when chemicals were not needed in beekeeping, although -- if
you look at the literature, people have been trying different
chemicals on bees and hives since the early days of the movable comb.

They even tried phenol and salicylic acid on bees to treat AFB. Root
says "During the summer of 1887 we used carbolic acid as an
antiseptic. This we sprayed upon the bees after they had been shaken
into clean hives, with what is called a spray-diffuser."


--
Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>