Dear Dan:<div><br></div><div>No one is trying to demonize anyone. Obviously, protection of pollinator and pollinator-services works only if beekeepers, scientists, local naturalists (who are often amateur beekeepers) and federal/state employees work together. The fact remains, though, that some beekeepers are living in la-la land based on recent, shared communications. Here are the facts.</div>
<div><br></div><div>1) Honeybees are not native to the flora of the western hemisphere.</div><div>2) Nectar and pollen is a limited resource consumed both by honeybees and native animals with anthophilous foraging habits.</div>
<div>3) Commercial bee keepers introduce hives by the hundreds into agricultural areas (fine with me) but that doesn't mean that honeybees always prefer the nectar and pollen they obtain from domesticated crops when they have the choice of flowering plants found in natural areas adjacent to cultivated fields.</div>
<div>4) Some beekeepers find this final point the hardest point to understand. The presence of any animal on a flower doesn't mean that flower has a true pollinator. Animal-mediated cross-pollination is a "balanced act." Honeybees DON'T pollinate every native flower they visit even though they may exit the flower with nectar and pollen from that flower. I have nearly 30 years of publications on who does and who doesn't pollinate based on fieldwork in North America, Australia, New Caledonia and Israel. Sometimes the honeybee is a dependable pollinator and sometimes it ain't but it is almost always a dependable remover of nectar and pollen. That's o.k. with me. My darling, <i>Xylocopa </i> (males and females) are good, native, North American citizens and they certainly don't pollinate everything they visit either but they are virtually the ONLY pollinators of one of the native milkweeds I've studied the last two years. The fact remains that you won't see hundreds of thousands of Xylocopas in a conservation area punching holes in the flowers but you can certainly see hundreds and thousands of honeybees in the same site if commercial apiarists are permitted to bring in their hives within a certain radius. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I love honey, beeswax candles and consume enhtusiastically every fruit and vegetable pollinated by honeybees (especially those yummy Californian almonds). However, I also love to eat pork sausage, beefsteaks, fired chicken and roast duck (Chinese way is best) in the clear knowledge that these animals were not permitted to forage in reserved, conservation areas during their life times. If dear little Miss Apis and her many sisters are permitted to do what is sweet and natural in a conservation area doesn't that mean that Bossie the cow, Donald duck and the three little pigs must be allowed the same access?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Peter <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Sunny Boyd <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sun@pollinator.org">sun@pollinator.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="blue" face="Arial"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue">From Daniel Weaver.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>
From: Daniel Weaver <<a href="mailto:dbeeweaver@gmail.com" target="_blank">dbeeweaver@gmail.com</a>><br>
To: <a href="mailto:Pollinator@lists.sonic.net" target="_blank">Pollinator@lists.sonic.net</a><br>
Cc: Zac Browning <<a href="mailto:z_browning@msn.com" target="_blank">z_browning@msn.com</a>><br>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:45:39 -0500<br>
Subject: access to the listserve; honey bees on conservation land<br>
Hello All,<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> Though I'm not sure this reply will post to the list, if
it reaches someone of authority with the means to allow me privileges to post I
would appreciate the favor of doing so - just provide appropriate instructions.
If this does post automatically, then I apologize for the diversion.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> I'll assume as a given that honey bees (Apis
mellifera) are avid, super-generalist pollinators of an amazing variety of
plants, whether native, merely introduced or invasive. Thus they may promote
propagation of a huge number of species, and will undoubtedly compete for
nectar and pollen resources. Less certain is whether this competition
will negatively impact native pollinators in any particular time, place or
environmental condition, much less native pollinators generally.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> I will concede that ecosystems most likely to be
affected by honey bee populations will be those where honey bee populations are
at the most extreme in terms of density. By the same token, the seasonal
occurrence of large concentrations of honey bees - in the central valley of
California for Almond pollination being one example - happen much earlier than
most native pollinators emerge or certainly before their populations reach peak
levels.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> First, I think it important to discriminate among
land tracts and the purposes for which they are administered. True
"Wilderness areas" don't merit managed honey bee populations and
beekeeper traffice (though how are you going to exclude feral colonies?) any
more than they should be used for any other intrusive activity. But I do
think that honey bees have a much less negative impact on native habitat than
grazing mammals, so if you can graze or hay the land, then honey bees should be
a no-brainer. <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> Second, many large tracts that are managed to
promote conservation of various biological features have long been occupied and
used by beekeepers and in some cases have been natural habitat for introduced
honey bees even longer. The later category of land includes conservation
reserve program land, blm land, forested land and incidental tracts managed for
reasons other than merely preservation and conservation of endangered species
or native habitat alone. <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> In other words, if you want to keep honey bees off
of wilderness areas I'm sympathetic (but what about those pesky feral colonies
that have been part of the ecosystem for 300?? years). On the other hand
if you want to propose excluding honey bees from any land tract that has any
conservation goal as an administrative or management aim, then I think you're
ignoring reality, and attempting to demonize the <i><span style="font-style:italic">only </span></i>agricultural industry that is truly invested in (and
will survive if and only if) we as a nation do more to protect and
preserve natural environments. If you want political allies to help
preserve more land, and develop, ruin and plunder the environment less, then
we're the best you're likely to find.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> It we can't preserve the natural and mutually
dependent alliance between beekeepers and native pollinator enthusiasts, find
some common ground, and work on preserving more natural habitat for both honey
bees and native pollinators then were all well and truly ....... add your
favorite apocalyptic phrase here.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Cheers,<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Dan Weaver<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
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