Here we go again.


Thank you guys for heating up this arctic chill that had, overnight,
spilled over all the way down to the People’s Republic of Oklahoma today:
tonight’s low, they say, will be 19 F.  Brrrrrrr.  (This Freon-chill
weather makes my Mongol blood boil and yearn for kumis)  This current
huffing and puffing on this thread, based on a firm *assumption* [ASSUME,
remember?], proves again how contentious we are, and I like it.  That’s
what America is all about.  Since Jim looks outnumbered here, allow me to
chip in and help him out without antagonizing my good friends on this
list, especially Allen and Bob.  I believe I can ignore Robin since he
lives on an island.

1. I have known Jim long enough to know that in spite of what he says
here, he operates savvier than most of us sideliners, if not many
commercial operators, with expensive technological/scientific equipment
and toys.  For instance, how many of you, noncommercial operators, own a
refractometer, among others?  I sure don’t, and I keep fifty colonies.  I
thus warn you not to assume that his modus operandi belongs to 19th
century where our grandparents kept the bees in the skeps a la George I.’s
pet description.  We all have heard the man and his, sometimes,
pontificating science classes, from which we have all benefited.

2. What I can glean from Jim’s post is that we stress too much on money—-
the bottom dollar and the profit—-and never the long-term welfare of Apis
although we all loudmouth how we LOVE bees.  Do we really?  I too know
money makes the world go around.  As the profit blinds us, however, the
efficacy and consistency often mean “minimal effort for maximum profit” :
just stick this chemical or that in the hive and “Forget About It!”  In
fact, a commercial operator often "inspects" his bees by confirming that
the bees are still "there in the box."  Treatment nowadays is also
measured by so many nanoseconds per hive, for “I run 50,000 colonies.”  In
scenarios like this, bees become EXPENDABLE, a mere commodity in the
Matrix, because the focus of commercial operation is, and always will be,
money and money and more money--regardless of the long-term, unforeseen
consequence to the bees.  Look where we are now thanks largely to such
brutal efficacy-paradigm.  It works brilliantly in short term, but never
in long term.  Don’t tell me such operation truly *cares* about the
millennium-old Apis species when, in fact, it all cares about is the back
pocket.

The above statement is my sweeping generalization based on the firm
assumption I have made by reading others who based their observations on
other assumptions.

Yoon

I like to meet Jim someday and steal a bottle of his Glenfidich (sp?).

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