Subject: The Bee Trucks are Rollin'.....Tractor-trailer loads of honeybee hive

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 23:09:00 GMT

are rolling north along

>From: "Dave Green, Eastern Pollinator Newsletter" <[email-masked]>
>Date:         Fri, 3 May 1996 09:42:36 -0400
>Subject:      The Bee Trucks are Rollin'.....

Hi Dave,  GOOD JOB!, with some minor details that were maybe
understated.<G>

>   A survey of California beekeepers last year showed that pollination
>service provided more total beekeeper income than honey production.

I am sure this is what any "limited" survey would say, as the honey
producers are, (how to say it), less then candid in stating what
they are doing in California as elsewhere. California more times then
not leads the nation in honey production, and if you were to add
what California based bee's make out of state it would be much more.
But it is true there are years that without the pollination income
things would bee a lot leaner for California then it is with
pollination.

>true in some other fruit or vegetable regions of the country, as well.  Many
>crops must have bees.  The  biggest pollination event, of course is the
>California almond crop, which needs about 300 thousand hives, and sucks bees
>from as far away as Florida.  Brokers have approached me, here in South
>Carolina, to ship bees to almonds.

California has a resident full time bee population that exceeds 400,000
hives and an additional 400,000 hives are brought to California for the
spring Almond Bloom and the cash flow, estimated to be in excess of 10
million dollars, much of it is eaten up by ever increasing fuel costs.

Gas seems to be following the retail price of honey which is about $2.00
a gallon or pound depending on which you are fueling up with.

Some individual operations from out of state bring in tens of thousands
of hives each. Beekeeper's from Florida did bring in many hives this
winter and from what has been reported by other beekeepers some of them
did not come in good condition and returned to Florida in no better
condition. I am sure a lot of citrus honey was used to get them back
in shape, pretty expensive feed at today's price.

We have no "BeeLine" highways as such, but if all the bee hives in
California were laid end to end it would be possible to walk from hive
to hive without touching the pavement on highway 99 from Bakersfield to
Sacramento and then some and thats several hundred miles. (Brian
Ferguson ran that on his HP for me one night at a bee meeting when we
both got burned out by other beekeepers wanting to spend our money for
some socialistic bee program that would do no more for anyone then spend
their money.)

If you consider the total number of hives, a significant part of
the total bee stocks in the United States, all concentrated on a single
crop, and in a limited area, for the critical early spring build up
time, it is no wonder that beekeepers all over the US are now having
similar bee health problems. If one bee passes gas it could bee said
that all will get a whiff of the odor in a short time considering how
much of a bee is olfactory preceptors.

BEE WARNED, and praise God none of us can afford the sophisticated DNA
tests to determine the ancestors of our bees because for the last
several seasons the F1 daughters of pure-o Tex-Mex bees have been in
California by the thousands including their drones which could be
pure Mexican in genetic history. None of these bees have posed any kind
of threat or problem to the public or beekeepers in California or
Texas, and NO reports of aggressive behaviour have been received. It is
well to remember that way before the official finding of the one dead
"1st killer" bee hive in a badger den hole in Kern County,..California
had both feral and kept hives that have passed the metromorphicial(sp)
tests for Afro genes and one feral hive in particular passed every know
test for pure Afro genes. None of the hives tested in California showed
any aggressive behaviour, and the one that was/is considered 100% by
every scientific standard is living in a tree on a public golf course
adjacent to a equestrian trail. The warning really is to be prepared
that if someone is attacked and killed by bees, (and about a dozen
people can be each year in the US statistically), that these people will
be killed by "killer" bees, and if the DNA comes back AFRO you will be
reading about it in the local papers. The truth will remain, it mattered
not what the bee's roots are, if it kills you it is a "killer" bee,
plain and simple. (AS is death by auto accident, reported as the
"killer" FORD's or CHEVIES?)

Well sounds like all US and Canadian beekeepers are busy and spring has
sprung with a little more silence in the US bee yards and trees then
what has been the norm in the recent past, and all beekeepers are going
to be more then busy making up for the hives that have been lost. Well
here in Central California our green season is about over and we are
into our brown season, which may turn out to be a black one with all the
grass and brush fires we have had a earlier then normal start on. Citrus
honey production seems to be about 50-60 pounds per hive, but extracting
of it is not done so it could be more or less. Potential for that BIG
crop is not good in California because of the weather conditions, lack
of rain in the prime southern areas, and hot winds, but I would expect
it to be close to our normal one.

                            ttul Andy-

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 þ QMPro 1.53 þ ... A comely olde man as busie as a bee.