----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Bray"

> In Australia, one significant advantage would be the elimination of
> ferals.  As I understand it, the claim is that feral honeybees
> inhabit available nesting sites and compete with Australian native
> animals, birds etc and thus upset the natural order of things.  It is
> hypothesised that these same ferals preferentially pollinate some
> species over others again upsetting the natural order.....   This is
> a key (if not THE key plank) in the environmentalists' argument that
> is having Australian beehives thrown out of National Parks, Forestry
> and Wilderness areas.
> Varroa will eliminate these ferals (and their replacements from
> commercial apiaries) and this may negate the environmental argument
> that is causing so much angst there.

The evidence from elsewhere is that the ferals will bounce back.  I will
happily live without varroa thank you.

The above is certainly the argument used by many conservationists.  However
there is scant evidence to support the claims.  Work on nest hollows by
Oldroyd showed that there were more than enough hollows where land had not
been cleared.  My own personal observations agree with this.  It is unlikely
that honeybees compete for resources, in that here we tend to a boom and
bust environment, more than enough, or none.  Work by Sugden showed that
there was an increase in the one native bee he studied.  He suggested that
the reason may have been that the introduced (by helicopter) hives provided
more food for insectivorous birds, cutting down on bird predation on the
natives.

In another study in South Australia on banksias, the researcher, although
starting off very negative to honeybees, came to the conclusion that because
the native pollinators had been reduced in numbers due to land clearing for
agriculture, bees were now a positive for banksia pollination.

In Australia, fire,or indeed lack of it,  is the driver of most of the
natural environment.

Geoff Manning

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