I have been following the discussion on almond pollination and current 
trends in our industry. There seems to be a general consensus that 
regulations are bad and beekeepers should be free to operate as they see 
fit. 

There is an analogous debate going on in B.C. over fish farms. The B.C. 
government is letting people set up "fish farms" along our coast. These 
involve nets full of fish which the fish farmer supplies with food. 
Research has shown that these farms produce great clouds of a parasitic 
sea lice that infect and kill up to 95% of passing wild salmon. So 
although fish farms are boosting our economy, they are killing off wild 
salmon. For this reason the Alaskan government (the darned communists) 
have banned fish farms. I give this example to show that there is at least 
one North American jurisdiction that doesn't have complete faith in the 
free market system.

Currently in North America we have hundreds of beekeepers who make a 
living from honeybees without moving their hives. But we can see from 
recent posts on bee-l that the industry profile is moving towards large 
migratory operations. Some think we could improve the industry even more 
by allowing the free movement of beehives from souther Mexico to northern 
Canada and back. If this happens I believe it will squeeze out most 'stay-
at-home' operations. They will have no pollination income and will not 
make a honey crop when someone drops 5000 hives in their area. I can buy 
some of the arguments (like you won't see the wife for six  months at a 
time) that this is progress but for the fact that we will have gone from 
an industry that burns relatively little fossil fuel to one that burns a 
lot. Honeybees need a clean environment to thrive and this new beekeeping 
industry will have seriously increased the pollution of our planet by 
constantly transporting hives all over the continent. So why are 
beekeepers happily embracing this future for beekeeping? To please the 
almond growers? To prove we're not communists? Oh ya, I remember, to make 
more money before we die. I keep forgetting how important that is.

Keep on truckin,

Ted

Thinking: Some of you may be using bad smoker fuel.

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