Hi Everyone,

Jim asked:

"Blaine - why didn't the state of MN fine the heck out of the beekeeper
who flaunted your laws?
Why wasn't he told to never return?"

Guess I should answer.  The beekeeper in this case got the joy of taking
the time and paying the expense of removing the bees from the state of
MN without any honey crop being collected.  The bees were ordered to be
returned to the state of origin - with full knowledge of the inspection
service in that state.  They were removed from MN and not taken to
neighboring states.  Why not fine you also ask.  Simply that the issuing
of fines etc takes time and the quicker things can be removed the less
risk of the pest spreading.  Sometimes more is accomplished by threats.
Also fines are limited in size etc so sometimes it is actually
profitable to pay the fine and argue about it for a while so the bees
make a crop before they get moved.

On another item.  Quarantines are never designed to even attempt to
prevent natural spread of a pest but to reduce or stop man assisted
movement of the pest.  So the objective of a quarantine is not to
forever prevent the spread of a pest into an area but to slow it down to
its natural rate of spread and buy some time for producers in areas
where the pest has not spread to yet.  There are several quarantines in
place but USDA the one most familiar to beekeepers is probably the red
imported fire ant quarantine but some others are the gypsy moth and
Japanese beetle.  And yes these have greatly slowed the spread of these
important pests but not totally prevented their spread into new areas.
Pests spread much faster and farther on a truck than when left to their
own methods.  So again quarantines can't stop the spread of pests they
only slow them down and buy some producers some time.  Hopefully, in
that time better management methods can be found for dealing with the
pest.
The USDA only deals with honey bees coming across the border from other
countries.  All regulations regarding movement of honey bees within the
country are state regulations.  This makes it very difficult to have
meaningful quarantines dealing with honey bees since different states
have different regulations.  Beekeeping is different in each state and
what works in MN may not work in VA and vice versa.  Individual states
can enact quarantines but they only apply to that individual state.

An interesting discussion.

FWIW

blane

******************************************
Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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