Hello Keith and All,

Keith wrote:
> Dee and Ed Lusby may have already done this, and now, all we have to do is
hope that they will share their stock so we can utilize it.

I have been waiting for this post to interject.   I knew the post was
coming.

 The Africanized bee was brought into Brazil to create a *super bee*. Why
not after all the world record for honey production from a single hive was
from an apiary from which Warwick Kerr got part of his queens.  Africanized
*genes* are serious business!

Removing queens and bees  from a area of documented AHb is illegal for a
reason.  To prevent the spread  of AHB. I can provide pages of USDA
documentation to the fact Arizona's bees are  to be considered Africanized.

The Lusbys say their bees are not ahb but have no proof and the USDA says
all of Arizona is AHB from their research.

I would need  some official inspection that the stock was not AHb before I
would order  queens from an area which according to the *2001* USDA AHB
spread map is the highest  concentration of AHB in the U.S. for a single
state.

The USDA source map can be found on page 22  of Dr. Dewey Caron's new book
published by A.I.Root (2001)"Africanized Honey Bees In The Americas".

The United States Department of Agriculture is not perfect but I have found
the information I have received from the dept. very accurate through the
years. I say *If* Dee wants to sell her queens then she gets the inspection
department running again and gets USDA inspection before illegally shipping
any more queens.

I suggest beekeepers even considering buying queens illegally out of a
documented AHB area  to buy and read the new Dewey Caron book first.

Even though the Arizona inspection department was dropped (while Dee was
president of the state associasion) it is still illegal to ship queens out
of a documented AHB area as Blane pointed out.

I do this post in the interest of U.S. beekeeping . Rules are made for a
reason. In this case to prevent the spread  Africanized genes.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison