Big Island has some concern on the Oahu Varroa Mite infestation.

Some news I got in email on an article which appears in
the big island Hawaii Herald Tribune... An excerpt:

"The Lingle administration decided not to seek more
state money even though screeners with the Department
of Agriculture have discovered honeybees embedded in
car radiators coming aboard the Hawaii Superferry,
which is scheduled to begin a Big Island route in
December. A Superferry spokeswoman said no live bees
have been found."

Looks like the Dept of Ag was able to get inspectors
at all ports after all. With all the complaints it just
seemed that the SF had not given consent to that. The
mite threatens a $450 million diversified ag industry
in the state.

That makes sense to me. Radiators get really really hot. Anything
like a
bee that comes in contact will be immediately dead. Dead bees are no
danger....live bees are.

"Alvin E. Toda" <aet@lava.net> wrote in message
news:1200007500-sch@news.lava.net...
>
> Some news I got in email on an article which appears in
> the big island Hawaii Herald Tribune... An excerpt:
>
> "The Lingle administration decided not to seek more
> state money even though screeners with the Department
> of Agriculture have discovered honeybees embedded in
> car radiators coming aboard the Hawaii Superferry,
> which is scheduled to begin a Big Island route in
> December. A Superferry spokeswoman said no live bees
> have been found."
>
> Looks like the Dept of Ag was able to get inspectors
> at all ports after all. With all the complaints it just
> seemed that the SF had not given consent to that. The
> mite threatens a $450 million diversified ag industry
> in the state.
>

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008, Jerry Okamura wrote:

> That makes sense to me. Radiators get really really
> hot. Anything like a bee that comes in contact will
> be immediately dead. Dead bees are no danger....live
> bees are.

I get reports that not all the bees are dead.

But besides that, bees will be attracted to the
radiator while the car is waiting on the ferry-- and
AFTER the car has been inspected. Recently, an infested
hive was discovered on Young Street near the Ferry. All
hives within a 2 mile radius of the ferry should be
eliminated. Possibly more since bees are said to have
about a 2 mile radius of range. IIRC to say that a
certain type of honey is pure Keawe for example,
requires that the hive be surrounded by a 5 mile radius
of Keawe bush. Of course, we can see that the taste
between 5 miles and 2 miles will have very little
difference.

The state (I really should say volunteers because the
state is not applying for additional funding to fight
this) is losing it's battle to eliminate all hives on
Oahu. It's a good thing that the SF is not pushing to
expand its routes so soon. It would be bad publicity if
for example, fire ants and the varroa mite expand to
all the major islands served by the super ferry. Out
here in the leeward area the state might be winning--
either that or a lot of hives out here have already
died from the mite. My lychee has been off probably
because of building where old naval warehouses once
were-- all the feral hives were destroyed by builders.
Just kill a bee yesterday. Hadn't seen one for weeks at
home. Lychee flowers haven't appeared yet but even if
they do I'll probably be buying any lychees I eat this
year.