Bee Folks:


As I follow this contentious debate regarding the “parasitic, hijacking of 
CCD funding,” I find, just as in any debate, lacking definitions of many 
crucial terms, such as “native” pollinators and “weed.”  For example, 
what/who determines the term “native”?  According to what and whose 
definition? When does a “foreign” species become native?  How long does it 
take?  Eons?  When would honeybees, for instance, get a green card to work 
farmer Joe’s alfalfa fields albeit at minimum wage?  The honeybees came 
ashore circa 1859 and they stayed put ever since in symbiotic coexistence 
with humans, not perhaps with “native pollinators.”  My point is that 
whatever the harm they may have caused in American ecology has already 
been done, a primary example of arguing “after the fact.”

The situation strikes me rather analogous to what happened to Native 
Americans; to a large extent, they are now protected and doing well, just 
as native pollinators—with their gambling casinos and tax-exempt status in 
pockets of American [bass!] woods.  But the ugly fact is that they lost 
the war, pure and simple, against the immigrant species who outnumbered 
them, outfoxed them in all legal finesse, and outstripped their wealth and 
land and women.  Now, can we say these immigrant species, mostly coming 
from Europe, like mellifera, are not native to this continent after so 
many generations of them have lived and changed flora and fauna?  Such 
monocrops as alfalfa are NOT weeds or something despicable or an exotic 
invasive species at all; I enjoy beef stakes and so do you.  So do 
American Indians.  My point?  What is the definition of “weed”?  Who 
determines what is and what not, and according to what criteria?  Worse, 
does the definition must undergo a periodic redefinition?  If yes, when?

Given the speed in global trafficking of any living organisms these days, 
I’d say by now American honeybees have gained the status of citizenship: 
they have become native in America.  But how?  Thanks to its ignorance 
about beekeeping and bee-biology, the public does not even know that 
honeybees are a non-native species.  They do consider them as part of 
American ecology that includes the bumbles, masons, and carpenters, along 
with a host of others.  What is wrong with such “biodiversity” 
particularly since honeybees have been here with us for so long and it 
will be impossible to rid of them?  

CCD, please correct me if I err, did not occur to these native species, or 
did it?  CCD is a non-issue to them.  CCD has occurred exclusively to 
honeybees, the focal point of this debate, the wheel that squeaked and 
needs to be greased.  Period.


Yoon
YSK HONEY FARM
Shawnee, OK

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