> H.R. 1709
> This bill not only addresses Colony Collapse Disorder in honey bees, 
> but also the decline of native pollinators in North America.

And who added "native pollinators" language?
When?
Why?

> with the decline in the number of managed honey bee colonies from 
> diseases, parasitic mites, and Africanized bees-as well as from 
> Colony Collapse Disorder-it is important to increase the use of 
> native bees in our agricultural system as well.

The comment about "native bees" is a classic "answer looking 
for a problem" tactic.  Oh so reasonable, and oh so cynical.

Finding the cause of CCD and use of native bees are two very 
different problems, and I am starting to get annoyed at the 
well-paid professional "native pollinator" advocates and their
ongoing well-funded PR campaigns.  They now stoop to attempting
to hijack a simple effort to fund some CCD research.

Their efforts work at cross-purposes with the simple need for 
funding and enhanced awareness among the general public about 
the specific plight of honey bees at hand and the resulting 
impact on practical agriculture.

Even at the USDA "CCD meeting" in Beltsville, a meeting called to
address a single specific problem that affects only colonies of 
Apis mellifera, precious time was wasted while "native pollinator"
advocates droned on and on about other types of bees, which have
not been affected by CCD.  Gentle attempts to redirect the 
discussion back to CCD and Apis mellifera were not enough of a hint, 
so the meeting facilitator had to overtly shut down the long-winded, 
non-productive, off-topic monologues so that the assembled group 
could get back to the business at hand.

With everyone from the anti-cell-phone luddites to the anti-GM-food
activists pointing to CCD and screaming "See?  We were RIGHT!  The
bees are dying, so we must have been right all along!", we don't
really need groups like the Xerces Society, who should know better,
doing the same thing.

Get this straight - CCD has nothing to do with the Xerces Society, 
native pollinators, or a "native pollinators" agenda.  The efforts 
of the "native pollinators" in this area of inquiry are cynical, 
self-serving, and fraudulent.  

Yes, we all agree that the general environmental deterioration has
hurt native pollinators, and that these insects and animals are 
excellent sentinels for environmental quality.  But they got the
NAS pollinator report to dedicate most of its pages to "pollinators"
that pollinate insignificant numbers of blooms of plants that
have nothing to do with agriculture,
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/pollinators_brief_final.pdf

And we did not complain.

They also got their stamps, having successfully lobbied to exclude 
our favorite insects, 
http://www.usps.com/communications/news/stamps/2006/sr06_048.htm

And again, we did complain.

They also dominated "National Pollinator Week" and all the
the promotional materials, bundling "bees" into a single
category, giving equal weight to flies, beetles, wasps, ants, 
butterflies, moths, birds, and bats.  Specific mention of
honey bees was only made when it was to point out problems
that were positioned to make them look like less viable
pollinators.
http://www.nationalacademies.org/headlines/20070621.html

And yet again, we did complain.

So we kinda hoped that they'd have the tact to leave a simple bill 
to fund CCD work alone.  The bill was written to provide 
desperately-needed funding to find the actual causes of CCD.
It was simple, it was clean, and it had a single purpose.

But no, they had to go lobby to insert some language to get some 
of that money and attention too.

They just have to stick their fingers in every pot, insert their
wishful thinking about THEIR favorite insects somehow becoming
economically-viable large-scale pollinators into the agenda, and 
thereby, ONCE AGAIN, diluted the message, complicated the situation, 
and added confusion to what was a simple and straightforward request 
to fund a very narrow set of tasks.

Let's get something straight here - when beekeepers are asked to
support efforts to protect native pollinators, we provide that
support, with words, deeds, and cash.  We don't try to twist things
around to include Apis mellifera, we don't lobby to get some funding
for our honey bee related agenda, and we certainly don't insert 
our favorite insects into the discussion.

So stop hijacking this discussion, stop lobbying to insert your
agenda into our mission-critical bill, and give us the same 
courtesy we extend to your efforts.

Withdraw your changes that divert funding away from specific
CCD work in HR 1709, and stop damming Apis mellifera with the 
"faint praise" of claims that alternative pollinators are some 
sort of practical "solution" to the problem at hand until you
can point to a specific general-purpose pollinating native bee
(or fly, beetle, wasp, ant, butterfly, moth, bird, or bat) 
that can be managed and deployed on anything more than a very 
limited basis on a very narrow range of plants.

If you don't get with the program, and get your sticky fingers 
out of OUR funding bill, don't come 'round here no more expecting 
us to support your slick PR and advocacy campaigns.  

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