This discussion has drifted away from CCD, but I'll 
keep the thread title, so as to not start a new thread.


> I think we might be able to condition bees to shun Clementines.

Why should anyone lift a finger to comply with such baseless
and blatantly silly demands?

The entire problem is a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot
by growers who deliberately ignored the prudent advice of experts,
and planted THEIR trees too close to THEIR OTHER trees.

The attempt to create a "bee no fly zone" stomps all over the
rights of adjacent landowners, so any such law, even if passed,
would be struck down as an "unjust taking" in violation of the
5th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states 
"Private property shall not be taken for a public use, without 
just compensation."  (The "taking" here would be the restriction
on the use of the adjacent land, limiting its use as agricultural 
land for crops that would be pollinated, such as for, ummm, ahhh,
other types of oranges!)

Joe Traynor did a good job of outlining the basic facts way back
in 2003 in Bee Culture magazine.  You can read a reprint of the
article here:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/traynor/bcapr2003.htm

There was a more recent Bee Culture article this winter on this 
same issue, which made it clear that the Mandarin growers (most 
of these trees being planted by a single corporation owned by 
Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Paramount Farms and Paramount Citrus
simply ignored the prudent advice of experts, and negligently
planted their trees too close to other orange trees that would 
cross pollinate with the Mandarin oranges.  As I understand it,
both sets of trees BELONG TO THESE WOULD-BE MANDARIN GROWERS.

Yep, its all their own trees, too close together, and their
"solution" is to attempt to legislate and regulate nature!

As stated in the 03/14/07 New York Times article
http://tinyurl.com/3dukog

"But clementine and W. Murcott trees dependably produce seedless 
fruit only when grown in isolated blocks. If they are not, the 
presence of bees becomes an issue.  Most growers underestimated 
how much buffer zone they needed around plantings to keep bees 
from bringing pollen from nearby seedy citrus."

The article further points out that the entire concept of
a "seedless orange" was a matter of applying sprays to
create a "Frankenfood" - a seedless fruit:

"Originally, clementines were seedy, and required pollination by
bees to bear regular crops. In the 1960s California researchers 
discovered that by applying a spray at bloom, simulating the growth 
hormones naturally secreted by seeds, farmers could obtain good 
harvests of seedless clementines. Bees became undesirable."

Since then, there have been several developments that make the
people lobbying for a "no fly zone law" look even more stupid:

"A partial solution for this problem - an irradiated version of 
W. Murcott that never develops seeds, even when cross-pollinated 
by bees - has been developed by Mikeal L. Roose and Tim Williams, 
citrus breeders at the University of California at Riverside. 
In 1996 they irradiated W. Murcott budwood sticks (stems used for
 grafting) to rearrange the chromosomes to cause sterility...
...now called Tango, was virtually identical to the original 
W. Murcott yet averaged only one seed in five fruits.
Nurseries started propagating Tango in June, and have orders for 
millions of trees."

Don't like the irradiation approach?
No problem - there are also hybrids:

"Scientists also are breeding new seedless varieties, mainly by 
hybridizing trees with three sets of chromosomes, rather than 
the normal two. That genetic imbalance causes the fruits to be 
seedless. Five years ago the University of California introduced 
three such triploid mandarins, of which some 200 acres have been 
planted, and University of Florida breeders are evaluating 12,000
 triploid mandarins. 'Triploids are the future of seedlessness,' 
said Jude W. Grosser, a citrus breeder at the University of Florida."

Money might buy new laws, but lucky for us, judges are much, much
harder to "buy".

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