Greetings
First, I certainly welcome Sai Suryanarayanan's willingness to discuss these issues in a public forum. We gather here in the interest of free discourse and the dissemination of useful information. Secondly, I readily admit that I may have misunderstood the underlying intent of the paper. In my defense, I would point out that it is written in an obtuse, verbose style which practically prevents its being understood by the layperson, or a the average beekeepers who figure so prominently in its thesis. Third, the paper lacks valid firsthand information about the realities of beekeeping. Perhaps if they had closer contact with real beekeepers instead of second and thirdhand information, there would not be so many glaring errors.

I realize this is yet another "meta-analysis" of the whole CCD phenomenon, which has been kept alive by the media and various analysts trying to deconstruct the various issues and factors involved. I would point to other meta-analyses such as "Rucker, R. R., Thurman, W. N., & Burgett, M. Colony Collapse: The Economic Consequences of Bee Disease." and "Dietary traces of neonicotinoid pesticides as a cause of population declines in honey bees: an evaluation by Hill’s epidemiological criteria. James E Cresswell, Nicolas Desneux and Dennis vanEngelsdorp." These two have the distinction of having as co-authors people who have long term firsthand knowledge of the issues at work in these alleged controversies.

But beyond that, you state "we make no claim as to what CCD is or is not." That may seem to be even handed to some, but there are many who do not accept CCD as a distinct phenomenon. If CCD does not exist as a distinct phenomenon, any discussion of its causes or impacts are vacuous. Similarly, with the so-called precautionary principle. To engage in a discussion about whether the precautionary principle has been adhered to or not, one must accept that it is a valid concept, which many do not. So, if neither CCD nor the precautionary principle are valid concepts then the discussion the impact of these is of little consequence.'

It appears to me that you have co-opted this farrago for your own purposes. That is to say, you come to it with a pre-constructed thesis and weave the data points and anecdotes in to fit your conclusions. This sort of intellectual exercise adds nothing to the discussion, in fact distracts from rational discourse and prevents understanding.

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm