They've had to import bees from Texas, the Dakotas and farther east. They've even brought in some colonies from Australia. That's driving costs up.

My guess is that the farther you get away from the East Coast, the less the impact Sept. 11 has had on state sunshine laws.

We just want Australia to be fair, like what they do with Middle East asylum-seekers.

You want a series of different kinds of flowers blooming at the same time for different kinds of bees.

You know how it is when you go mall shopping. You're after just one thing but you see something else in another store window and you buy it. It's the same with bees. They'll spend more time in a diverse garden then they would if the same flowering plants were isolated elsewhere.

We brought the (WBC) pitchers in early because we want to make sure they are farther along than normal so they can physically handle what is going to be expected of them. I'd expect them to start throwing batting practice (before the rest of the pitchers). Once we get them ahead (in conditioning), we don't want them to take a step back.