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From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:05:59 -0500
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Bob said:

>>> If I were to guess I would say Mr.. Michael Pollan has read one of 
>>> my five articles on the Australian bee import...

And Bob added:
>> Michael Pollan might understand things better if he spoke
>> with an informed beekeeper.

Please explain in more detail.  

Brian said:
> problem is Bob some folks like you don't like the answers.

No one likes "answers" that do nothing but wander around
seeking problems to which they can attach themselves.

Everyone and his 2nd cousin has been trying to hitch the wagon 
of their own agendas to the well-publicized problems that bees
and beekeepers have been having.  We covered it all in detail
last spring, here: 
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0707B&L=BEE-L&D=0&I=-3&
P=70


Brain said:
> I and other like minds can only hope that these systems
> break down from the fact that they are unsustainable.

Well, there's an interesting thing to hope for.  Nothing 
less than a complete demolition of the most productive 
methods of agriculture ever developed by man, to create 
one you'd call "sustainable".  The result would be, what,
exactly?  

One could call it a form a genocide, in that the first food 
not shipped would be the multi-ton foreign aid and emergency 
aid shipments that the US sends so many places so often.

The "problems" of beekeeping have little or nothing to do with 
the "sustainability", or lack thereof in agriculture as a whole.  
Our problems are the direct result of exotic invasive pests 
and pathogens that would have stayed on the other side of 
the planet if not for all this newfangled "world trade" 
that goes on without anything more than grudging lip service 
to the issue of "biosecurity".  No other live creature crosses 
international borders without specific tests, screening, and 
sampling to protect biosecurity and animal health, so why are 
bees an exception to these rules?

> you seem more interested in importing bees then fixing 
> the problems we created as an industry.

Neither approach would have a positive effect, as neither 
approach has anything to do with the actual causes of 
"the industry's problems".

IMPORTING BEES
Bob's support for importing bees from the other side of 
the planet, and his open opposition to any sort of disease 
and pest sampling/inspection at port of entry
( see http://bee-quick.com/reprints/beepocalypse.pdf )
does seem like less of a "solution" to a problem, and 
much more like the best possible way to bring yet 
even MORE pests and diseases from the other side of 
the planet here.  

And this movement of additional pathogens may be 
happening as I type.  Diana Cox-Foster's presentation
at the recent Entomological Society of America meeting 
indicated that the Australian bee imports may not be 
"off the hook" after all.  Something about different 
strains of IAPV, and multiple introductions of IAPV
over time.  (Anyone have a recording or transcript?)

So Bob's approach is much like calling upon Mothra to 
protect Tokyo from Godzilla, and we all know how that 
worked out for Tokyo.  Double the buildings got 
knocked down.  (See "Mothra vs. Godzilla", 1964 and/or 
"Godzilla vs. Mothra", 1992).  

FARM "SUSTAINABLY"
But the claim that anything would be "fixed" by dragging 
all of agriculture to the granola-and-Birkenstock fantasy 
of small-scale, organic, so-called "sustainable" operations 
is to propose something much, much more dangerous.  There is 
a technical term to describe such agriculture - it is called 
"subsistence farming", and it is massively wasteful of scarce
resources like water, and produces, at best, only enough food 
to feed the farmer's family.  In anything less than a "good 
year", people starve, and die in large numbers.  When 
Sally Struthers appears on TV commercials asking us to Save 
The Children, she is asking us to help feed the children of 
"subsistence farmers".  We can afford to feed them with ease
precisely because we abandoned subsistence farming several
centuries ago.

Lucky for us, science ignores the neo-luddites who have
never missed a meal in their lives, and does things like
come up with rice that needs less water, and can feed
more people with less resource consumption:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070910173802.htm
Now that's sustainability!

> stop planting massive monoculture crops which require
> pollination services that do not exist.

Funny, I haven't seen any crops going unpollinated, so I'd 
submit that not only do the services exist, but that they 
are still such a bargain that growers have not even tried 
moving the function in-house.  Even at prices over $100 per 
hive, pollination is one of the cheapest inputs a grower 
can deploy, per ton of crop produced.  Dollar for dollar, 
pollination is "almost free" to the grower at current prices.

> people are and will be asking is that honey from china or a
> migratory operation? no thanks I'll get the non-industrial, 
> more sustainable version from a local beekeeper.  

No one buying honey has ever asked that sophisticated a 
question.  

What they ask about all food are questions like:  "Is it 
local food?" "If not, why not?"  That's a good question to
ask, as it should be obvious that consumers want Country
Of Origin Labeling on all food, including honey, and would
prefer to buy food produced as close as possible to home
rather than from far far away.  That's a good thing.

But the massively misinformed idea that "migratory beekeeping"
is anything new, or puts some new "stress" on the bees is
laughable in the extreme, given that migratory beekeeping
has been around since at least 3,000 BC or so.  Back then,
they were moving hives around on donkeys.  Anyone who has
ever tried to ride a donkey can confirm that this would be
several orders of magnitude more "stress" than the modern 
approach of lifting pallets smoothly with Swingers onto 
flatbeds with air-ride shock absorbers, which drive on nice 
smooth interstates fast enough to provide a cool breeze to the hives.

An entertaining story can be found in the collection of
papers called "The Bureaucracy of Ptolemaic Egypt" (found
at Columbia U, copies elsewhere), where a group of beekeepers 
petition a local official for the return of their donkeys, 
conscripted for some unnamed public works project.  They 
point out that they had loaned their donkeys for 10 days,
and 18 days had passed without their return.  The growers
were waiting impatiently for the beekeepers to move their 
hives, as the growers wanted to burn the weeds and brush 
and then flood the fields.  The farmers were hinting that
they would set the fires by some deadline, hives moved or 
not, so the beekeepers pointed out that their loss of hives 
would reduce the taxes that could be paid to the king.

Sound familiar?  Growers anxious to do their pest control
and fertilization, wanting the hives out NOW.  Beekeepers
forced to beg for even minimal attention from the government. 
Some things never change.  :)

The only reason researchers have been saying that beekeepers 
should "reduce stress", was that they didn't have any better 
advice, and are fumbling for something, anything to say in 
response to the question "what can beekeepers do about CCD?".  
They certainly did not want to admit the unvarnished truth, 
which is that "All we can do here is watch hives die".
("Saving Private Ryan", 1998)

Bob said:
> Those beekeepers on here from another forum know I have been
> asking all beekeepers to contact me if having problems. I have 
> spoke with around 10 beekeepers which have attended their state
> meetings and few if any problems.

We've been over this before.  Beekeepers are reluctant to tell
another beekeeper their actual problems.  The folks doing the 
actual research don't seem to be having any problem getting 
"fresh samples", if that's any help in grasping the current
scope/extent of the issue.

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