Hi Steve

> It’s probably not worth it.

I'd like to thank you for it!  Jim is certainly acerbic, pretty perceptive, highly entertaining, an awesome debater and a helluva fast typist, but also sometimes wrong.  One thing though - you made the mistake of using the phrase 'bucking nature' which gave Jim the chance to shift the debate from 'sustainability' to 'nature'.  The first is absolutely crucial in so many ways; the second is just a convenient term to force folk into a modern, logical camp and a spiritual, gut instinct one. 

People return to their comfort zones, and the real issues get obscured: is large-scale migratory beekeeping really sustainable?  Will it be liable to suffer epidemics of disease that would not affect less intensive beekeeping, or are such epidemics neutral on the question of the intensiveness of the operation?

You wanted facts and rational argument on this question Steve, and so do I.  We shouldn't be diverted from that.  

all the best

Gavin

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