I believe that Bee-L was started using a basic messaging system called Tel-Net. People in the Universities could message each other using the existing resources. In the early 90s the public began to get access but it was pay by the minute. Bee-L was hosted for many years by the NY University at Albany. I am not going into why it left that system but it came to be that L-Soft agreed to host it. 

BeeSource went the other way, sold advertising and is well funded, so they probably don't have the problems we do. They also don't have moderators, although the last time I posted there it was censored by the software. I referred to Homo sapiens in passing; the word Homo is not allowed by their filters. I have no idea what other words are prohibited, I don't really care.

I don't know what is happening to Bee-L now, but I haven't had any trouble sending nor receiving messages via the web interface. Of course, I have no way of knowing what messages I didn't get. I like using Bee-L as a sounding board for ideas relating to bees, &c. Most other online forums are less than useless. I hope it doesn't go under.

Pete Bee

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