"so they never reach zero  so what??  As long as they fall behold a threshold of harm they could be considered gone."

Charles, Randy and others on this list say that they ARE below the "threshold of harm".  They may be right.


I'm not so sure.  What is that threshold?  Are we talking about a threshold for death, or a threshold for dysfunction?  Short term or long term?  If bees/queens live shorter lives than they used to, does that matter? I've read a lot of papers by now that show problems.  How do we quantify "harm" if it means that the bees are alive but merely "seem" to be performing more poorly than we expect?  It was a great honey year here in much of upstate New York.  So how come so many colonies on acres and acres of goldenrod are underweight going into winter?  We can't even say for sure what the nectar yields were, so we how can we tell if the bees are having problems or if the plants are underperforming!

Does it matter????  Personally, I don't feel the need to defend my hunch.  We don't know everything, and someday the truth will out.

There are many more pressing issues confronting bees that we could choose to talk about.  I'm still intrigued by the idea that mites might have behaviors promoting more opportunities for sexual selection.  That seems to me to be more important to think about, right now, than this discussion, from a priorities standpoint.  But if Randy wants to discuss this I'm willing, if my input is helpful.  The answers ARE NOT CLEAR CUT.  I cannot "prove" my suspicions any more than Randy can "prove" there's no problem.

Christina



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