To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Info on mites Fr. James Cassidy wrote (11/9/95):
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Info on mites Fr. James Cassidy wrote (11/9/95):
AW>From: Adrian Wenner <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 08:40:48 PST
>Subject: Re: Info on mites
AW> An official embargo against importing bees has been in place in the U.S.
>since 1922. However, queen breeders and beekeepers have continued to
>smuggle stock in from other countries in the apparently mistaken belief
>that there is some magical strain out there that could outperform their
>existing strains. (Editorial: More efficient management has always been a
>better solution.)
Hello Adrian,
Individual American Queen Breeders or other's smuggling bee stock is
not the norm in the United States. Few if any have ever done this or
would even consider it. But I know some may have and and not
got detected and a few have been caught, but very few in the 73 years
since the law was passed.
Considering how easy it would be to place a queen and a few attendants
in a plastic cage and air mail them in a envelope to or from just about
any place in the world with no more then the proper postage it is a
wonder more don't come in this way. The shipment of bee semen is even
easier to do undetected. My own opinion based on personal conversation
with those who may have done such things is that it is unfair to single
out Queen Breeders, and Beekeepers, if you don't include Bee Scientists
including those who may not have done the paper work after receiving the
imported goods. As one friend told me of asking about stock at a well
known East European bee lab and something was lost in the translation
and the stock arrived before the paperwork was done, saving a lot of
time and paper work.<G>
It is my own personal belief based on the number of interceptions of
feral hives in transit at water port's of entry that for every one
detected there has been one or more undetected and I believe that this
was the most likely entry points for both mites in the numbers and
speed to account for the initial rapid spread on many fronts at once.
Next month new NAFTA rules on trucking direct from Mexico open the door
to many more problems for the near future.
AW> Those who don't know history, of course, are doomed to repeat earlier
>mistakes. Despite one disaster after another since 1922, someone in
>Florida brought in yet more bees in the same illegal way, along with their
>varroa mite passengers. By selling queens to beekeepers in a dozen states
>without realizing he was also providing a plague, he initially nearly
>single-handedly brought the roof down on our heads. Migratory beekeepers
>likely (and also unwittingly) put the final touches on the spread.
Repeating history seems to be the norm, could be we should try learning
by it, the federal regulatory people sure have or they would still be
killing bees and putting beekeepers out of business. If it is
impossible to stop the importation of bee problems with law's from the
1920's, and with the massive lack of regulatory capital and manpower it
would take to enforce the old laws on modern transportation systems, and
with wild bee's freely coming and going across our own boarders, and
some as suspected, aided my beekeepers, maybe its time to change the
laws to allow easier importation of stock.
I assume if you publish your paper you will have more then the
stories passed around from beekeeper to beekeeper about any beekeeper
from Florida being responsible for introducing varroa mites to the
US. Some of the stories I have heard and tried to check out are not
accurate and have hurt individuals for no good reason at all. I know you
are a scientist and will stick with facts and not hypothesize with
peoples lives.
Yes, migratory beekeepers can spread mites and it's far to easy to
convince most of that, they also can spread the Tex-Mex bee. In
California with its history of trading gasoline for honey or pollination
rentals most beekeepers would agree that moving bee's spread all kind's
of bee problems. So it must bee, but I am a skeptic, not that the mites
have have not arrived, I have seen them and what they can do or I am
told they do. In observing the location of African bee finds in Arizona
and knowing the area well I don't see any correlation between the moving
of bees and the spread of Afro genes as these genes have moved like wild
fire within and from within areas that few bee's are ever moved assisted
by man. The 'T mites in isolated areas of Mexico may not have been
helped by man and don't know what you have found in the islands off the
coast of California or if man had a hand in it.
AW> I am now finishing a manuscript for BEE CULTURE on the spread of varroa
>mites in the U.S., through the kind cooperation of numerous individuals in
>various states (complete with a map of the U.S. and sequence of mite spread
>by state).
As always's I look forward to any thing you publish as you have proven
that the first solution to a problem is not always the only one.
ttul Andy-
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