Randy:
Charlie, my wife, who watches TV, just called me into her den to see
vanEngelsdorp, Hackenberg, Time magazine's science editor, among others on
some morning show with a very pretty hostess.
I was waiting to take a family member to a doctor's appointment when this came on. It starts with Katie Couric quoting the fake Einstein doom and gloom statement that in 4 years we're all going to be gone if pollinators disappear. One would think her researchers would have discovered that Einstein never said this, and from the information I got from his Library, it's doubtful he even gave bees any thought. Then the network re-ran Hackenberg's 2006 CCD videos and launched the whole discussion with a panel of three: Dennis, an NDRC director, and the reporter who ran the Time magazine article.
Dennis tried to turn this away from CCD, stating there's been no CCD in past three years. That was interesting to me, since I've experienced it and know of others who have in past three years (especially 1 and 2 years ago) - although maybe it's not as widespread or being as often reported as during the early days of CCD and media hype. Then again, I've heard Dennis say at recent meetings that CCD hives don't have A. ceranae, which came as a surprise to me, since every CCD colony we sampled from 2006-2010 had A. ceranae. That's an easy way to reduce loss from CCD, re-define it. If it looks like CCD, has few or no bees like CCD, occurs suddenly like CCD, but has A. ceranae, it's not CCD - or at least, that seems to be the logic. It's the same political line as seen in Canada, where the official statement is something along the lines of 'there have been no confirmed cases of CCD in Canada". Of course there haven't, since no one has yet confirmed the causal agent, one can't confirm the presence of the disorder. In this case it could look like CCD, but it's impossible to prove it's CCD. But, I digress.
Dennis did correctly point out that it is the continued 30% annual loss that's the bigger concern, not CCD per se.
Not surprisingly, the NRDC Director vilified neonics - they make millions on donations to continue the fight against pesticides and need to justify those donations. Personally, if NDRC is so worried, I'd think they should spend some of their millions on research aimed finding better solutions. So, for every call to ban neonics, I think every beekeepers should call for NRDC to spend some money on research to find the answers, come up with solutions.
Then the Time reporter repeated what Jimmie Doan and others told him about bee problems, including some researchers who are waving the flag against neonics and some of the rest of us, like Randy and myself, who were interviewed, but in the Time article are simply mentioned as OTHER Researchers.
I didn't see all of the show, I had to leave to get to the Doctor, but I saw enough to agree with Randy. We're still in the mode where the beekeeping industry of the USA is being represented by a handful of people who pretend to represent everyone else. At least Dennis was trying to insert some facts. An NRDC director and a Time reporter do not fit my definition of qualified experts. One has an anti-pesticide agenda, the other is repeating what others told him. Where was the leadership of the National Bee Associations? Where were the USDA researchers? How about other researchers. If the network was trying to show various opinions and aspects of the issue, why not state that up front, and set it up in that format?
Too bad that Katie got handed this B.S. for an her introduction.
Jerry
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