Starving singles in 2009 Almonds

[Honey-4-All]

For all you out of state'rs who brought bees in to the almonds and went back home with your annual paycheck: Get some rubber boots on your feet and a syrup bucket in your hand.


2/11/09


The weather forcast (Northern California) for the next ten days looks like the end of the bloom in 06. If you have strong singles or bees without much feed on them they will be starving before the end of the bloom unless the weather breaks. Snow down to 1500 feet tommorow with the highs only forecast in the 50's for the next ten days. Good luck !!!!!!!!!

[Tom G. Laury]

No problem we'll just bring in a few more Australian bees they are so much better than the US bees. Plus it's beneficial to the local state and national economy to be sending that money down under.

[Tom G. Laury]

Who DIDN'T get their paycheck, will be moving in to something to feed their bees, like BLOOMING ORCHARDS!!...

[alpha6]

Follow the money trail. I am sure someone is getting a kickback on these Aussie bees. Can't you Calf. beeks get together and partition to keep these bees out of the state? For that matter it seems like a good thing to be brought up in the next Annual American Honey Producers Assoc. meeting. We need a lobby of beeks and beek friendly organizations to start working harder on keeping the tainted Chinese and other imported honey out and out of country bees as well.

I was going to say that the National Honey Board should be working on these, but one of the board members is too busy mixing in tainted Chinese honey into American honey to be worried about American Beeks interest.

[loggermike]

Looks like its gonna be a real wet month.Time to make a sugar run today and get ready to slog out into the wet orchards.There will always be some that can use some feed.
If unable to drive to them with syrup,keep in mind that a backpack with 50 lbs of dry sugar and a pan dipper will keep them alive in an emergency situation.

[irwin harlton]

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[Tom G. Laury]

Is actively lobbying, RIGHT NOW on our behalf to stop the importation of Australian bees. It's expensive though.

[RobertLorge]

I have talked to several of the major producers and suppliers in our industry and we have talked about Lobby efforts. I think that is what we will need to do. I am a fiscal conservative, it kind of burns me both ways to see who is getting bailed out by the Feds, while we watch very little Fed money going into something useful, like our 4 soon to be 3 under budgeted Bee Labs and others trying to cure CCD.

Ditto on Communist Chinese poisoned Honey and other junk.

As to NZ and Australia, the rule should be RECIPROCITY. The trade in bees form here to there should be made exactly EQUAL or EQUALLY EASY as from there to here......with CCD we may need them, so I would not stop them at this point, would like to, as I am a MADE IN AMERICA kind of person, but I think they are our insurance, Mexico or Central or Latin America could have been BUT FOR the African Honey Bee AHB problem. We can at least drive there. If AHB spreads throughout the warm USA maybe we should reconsider, but I guarantee you, we would all be buried by imports then. Thus Equal Trade is the only kind of FAIR TRADE which beats Free or slave trade....

In the meantime, feed your bees, with the drought etc., the loss of 200,000 acres of Almonds, double that in bees needed there, and still drought etc., I predict a lot of dead bees and a shortage everywhere. The normal trade pattern, to Almonds and then back is now broken, and the DOMINO EFFECT will cause a shortage, maybe with the economy and politics a permanent shortage...who can afford to continue the WAY IT IS ?

[JohnK and Sheri]

The normal trade pattern, to Almonds and then back is now broken, and the DOMINO EFFECT will cause a shortage

How so?
Sheri

[RobertLorge]

SEveral reasons, primarily three:
1. 200,000 droughted acres of almonds taken out of production, meant 400,000 to maybe 500,000 less bee colonies needed this year;
Many of those bees where there or enroute there and are what you could call "stranded". Once stranded, these hives became starved out, dried out, diseased out, or died out. Even those that caught it in time, and did not go or become stranded, became surplus bees that were not going to get Almond fees and thus had to be fed, or otherwise if in the north fell under the typical current higher deadouts from winter clusters that we will only start to see now.
2. All the bees out there, under the stress of the drought, pre-starving, post-starving due to a shorter bloom, etc., more susceptible to disease and the spread of disease from the stranded bees, are now bringing those diseases back with them, if they made it or make it, to spread the diseases to other bees coming out of winter cluster back home, unless treated immediately for everything, and there have been shortages I hear here and there for things like Fumagilin-B being hoarded, and Terramyacin, to say nothing of mites, and the new Aussie rumored virus introduced out there. Many have voiced concerns of California spring packages for bees that have been stressed out there and have basically worn their wings off, the bee version of being on your last leg, anticipating weak nucs and packages from out there.
3. Once bitten twice shy, the beekeepers that had contracts fall through, or renegotiated $155 or $135 contracts to $80 or who were stranded and paid nothing, will not produce "more bees" now for next year.
These and several other DOMINO EFFECTS from the bubble bursting out in California will then follow the pollination cycle around the nation, resulting in bee shortages, not surplus bees as one might have originally thought, because of the poor economic instability of what happened in California because California Federal Judges and State bureaucrats appear to be the only people that remain living in LALA Land (reference to Los Angeles Hollywood fantasy land) and do not know that California has always had a water shortage and unlike the Saudis and other who use America desalination and other water purification processes have done NOTHING FOR DECADES to solve California's and the SouthWest's chronic water shortage.
I the Midwest, like Illinois where you live Sheri, we have the world's (that's right the whole world's) largest supply of fresh water. Ask our friends in Georgia and surrounding states there, or even Texas about their water problems, and you will soon see why Wisconsin and the Midwest truly can be called "God's Country", how lucky we are.