>From: "Thomas W. Culliney -- Dept. of Agriculture"              <culliney@elel
>.peacesat.hawaii.edu>
>Date:         Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:39:38 -1000
>Subject:      European foulbrood in New Zealand?
 
>In a letter to the editor, published in the latest issue (August 1997) of
>the American Bee Journal, the writer, John Iannuzzi, states that he was
>informed by two New Zealand beekeepers that European foulbrood is found in
>New Zealand. Can anyone confirm this?
 
Hello Tom,
 
YES, New Zealand beekeepers who have visited and worked for me in the
past have said that they had "EFB" after they have seen it up close and
personal in bees here in California. But since what we beekeepers call
"EFB" may be a cocktail of problems it may be that those in New Zealand
who say they don't have "EFB" are also right as they may not have the
same "EFB" that we have. OR they may have political reasons as in the
past it has also been said by NZ public relations/regulatory officials
they don't have any bee diseases which is misleading at the least.
 
Who to believe has always been a judgement call on motive. I personally
believe any country that believes it gets it AFB from empty imported
honey containers must also have EFB but then everything is in the eye of
the bee holder so they say and in the USA it can be said that we do not
have AFB in our feral honeybee populations with 99.99% confidence
because it is a fact, but all old beekeepers know that at one time or
another they have seen AFB in their hived honeybees.
 
As you know the bee disease issue is a political issue between the
governments of New Zealand and the United States because of the
underhanded way our beekeeping regulatory officials in Maryland caved in
to pressure from New Zealand and Canada for landing rights for honeybees
in transit to Canada. I say underhanded because this was a 100%
political movement without real concideration of the wishes of the
electorate of the good state of Hawaii who have every right to expect
better then what they got from their political leaders but they did not
know about the "good old boy network" that still exhists between some in
the beekeeping regulatory business extending worldwide or the connection
between so called bee research in the USDA and our federal beekeeping
regulatory system which is one and the same and that is the problem.
 
With the criminal inditement of the former USDA Secertary of Agriculture
it is clear that a few other minor burcrats in the USDA should also
bee worried as the day of the free lunch and free trips for what ever
purpose may be over as some of us see little difference in working for a
Arkansas chicken plucker and some foreign government bee research
project that has no benefit to US tax payers or US beekeepers.
 
Top priority research by the USDA is regulatory in nature and one only
has to have attend the last generation of national beekeeping meeting to
have a grater knowledge of the annual changing USDA management system
then beekeeping disease research. As USDA beekeeping research dies for
lack of beekeeper interest and budget cuts some effort has been made by
the USDA to show concern for beekeeper problems but I suspect the die
has been cast and without some major changes, that I don't see coming,
its too late and the Hawaii situation is one of those proverbial straws.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
 
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