On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:22:14 -0400, Adony Melathopoulos 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

   Rephrased: which inputs give us
>the most profitable and sustainable (eg takes less non-renewable energy,
>produces less greenhouses gases, retains more wealth within our rural
>communities) increase in yield.   

At the risk of being told to just shut up about it I'd like to bring this 
back to the Canada/US border. The study that Adony suggests would be very 
interesting to read but difficult to carry out. But I expect someone with 
more time and brains than me could come up with some fairly accurate 
figures on just one of these factors. 

I think I am correct in assuming that a beekeeper with 5000 hives in 
Canada would burn more fossil fuel trucking his hives down to pollinate 
almonds in California each year than he would keeping his bees in Canada 
year round. I'd be interested to know how much more fuel would be burned 
and what that carbon is worth these days in the way of carbon credits. It 
would then be easy to compare that figure with the value of pollination 
achieved and with the beekeepers profit. Another variable is how much 
pollination fees would drop with this new source of bees avaliable but 
there are a lot of "if's" in that one.

I also feel it is a safe assumption that ten, 500 hive beekeepers in 
California contibute more wealth/volunteer service/stability to their 
local communties than the Canadian beekeeper with 5000 hives who moves is 
bees down in October and takes them back north (home) in April. For that 
matter I expect the California beekeeper with 5000 hives contibutes more 
to his community/state/country than the Canadian migrating in with 5000 
hives. If you agree with these assumptions then how do you think 
governments should act? It seems to me that some advantage should be given 
to the local beekeeper. This is assuming of course that our goal is to 
have safe, stable, low-polluting communities.

Braced for the incoming,

Ted

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