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From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:43:19 -0400
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Steve Nobel said:

> It is hard to make a living at beekeeping now, especially 
> if your practices are bucking nature too much.  

The claim that anyone is "bucking nature" is a very weak 
accusation when the root cause of the bulk of our problems
has been the moving-target nature of nature itself.

Nature just ain't natural no more, and the future's not what
it used to be.

All these invasive exotic diseases, pests and pathogens have
traveled from far, far away to get here.  Without their unwelcome
addition to "nature", everyone would be bothered by nothing
more than what our fathers and grandfathers were - foulbrood.

So, given that "nature" is now so "unnatural", why is there 
such a wide-eyed group of true believers who think that
they can "keep bees in tune with nature", or some such
other nonsensical phrase?  

Everyone keeps bees in boxes, and smokes their bees when
they open the hives, and these two universal activities
are massively "unnatural".  I (gasp!) harvest honey from
my hives, yet another very unnatural activity.  Worst of
all, even the colonies kept in bee gums and tended by
nudist beekeepers who refuse to use smokers will go
out every day and gather nectar and pollen from plants
that are themselves invasive exotic species.  Look at
Purple Loostrife.  A great honey plant, but one that is
the target of multiple expensive eradication efforts.

The promise of "natural beekeeping" lures many wannabe
beekeepers down a path that seems attractive, but ends 
up one of two ways.  In rare cases, isolation alone 
protects the colonies, and they appear to survive and 
thrive, or the colonies are not isolated enough, and 
the beekeeper soon disappears off the radar.  

The choice of (a lack of a) treatment program does not
bother me as much as the willful and deliberate lack
of any monitoring/testing effort.  At some point,
this will become understood to be "cruelty to bees",
just as not taking your pet to the vet for a checkup
would be "cruelty to animals".  

Online discussion groups prove this point clearly.  
After some period of strident advocacy and parroting 
of dogma, the "all-natural" beekeeper actually gets a
hive or two, and goes into a period of crowing about 
how his or her hives have survived for a whole 6 months
without any "treatments".  Of course, there's no monitoring
or testing going on either.  Why should they bother to
run any tests on their bees?  They just know that they are
doing the right thing.  

Then, suddenly, the beekeeper is no longer heard from.  
We've lost another beekeeper.  The hives all died, and 
the person gave up in frustration or embarrassment.  

There have been a few who have been brave and honest 
enough to report on the inevitable failure of neither 
monitoring, treating, or even feeding their hives in
times of drought.  They were been quickly jumped upon 
by the other true believers, the ones who have not yet 
lost their hives to the first problem to wander down 
the road and into their back yard.

So, the combination of a mind so "open" that the first
damn-fool idea to wander in can take over, and hives
so unmanaged that the first pest or disease to wander
in can take over and kill the hives is a bad one.

There are some who want to blame migratory operations for
providing free transport for pests and diseases, and their
criticism is valid.  It is true that the migratory operations
internalize their profits while externalizing their costs on 
beekeepers unlucky enough to be in their path, and even 
beekeepers who happen to merely be near their path.  

But the migratory guys would not have all those "costs"
that they choose to externalize on the surrounding 
countryside if not for much larger enterprises that 
brought the pests here to North America in the first 
place, and externalized their costs on everyone else 
(while, of course, internalizing the profits).

You can shrug and say to yourself that there is nothing
we can do about all this, or you can realize that I 
presented this exact same reasoning back in 2002, and
warned that a lack of inspections and sampling of imported
bees would introduce "the next varroa" (at that time, my
favorite poster pest was Tropilaelaps clareae).

Sadly, I was generally ignored at the time.

And here it is only a few years later, and we have 23 
researchers standing up and pointing an accusing finger
at Australia as the "source" of a new pathogen that they
claim is connected to CCD.

Regardless of what you think about CCD or the claims
currently being made, the Australians have admitted to 
several incursions of Apis cerana into Australian ports 
since 2002, and this is just the bees that they FOUND.  
It is simply impossible to inspect 100% of cargo containers 
entering any port, so it there is not just a chance, but a 
statistical certainty that Apis cerana will get into 
Australia, and bring Tropilaelaps clareae along for the ride.

That's a shame, but that's no reason for a sense of hopeless
despair here.  We can inspect and test imports.

Do the Australian's inspect for Tropilaelaps clareae, or
even know what it looks like?  Dunno, as they continue to
stand on ceremony and make the flat statement that they
are "free of this pest".  Just like they stood on ceremony
and declared that they were "free of Small Hive Beetle".
Until of course, it got into Australia, and spread to
aperies all over.  Whoops.  If they can't see SHB, they
certainly won't see the tiny Tropilaelaps clareae mite,
now will they?

The price of honey remains unchanged from 2002.
The price of honey is (still) eternal vigilance.

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