-- Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>They go on to say things like "restoring this balance should ..." and "in-vivo experiments indicate ..." and "thus confirming".

>None of these assertions are even slightly backed up.

you are correct.  this particular link is literature from a company that makes drugs....and no, they do not provide actual data...but, based on the other links i've posted, do you question this contention?  it seems obvious that a broad spectrum antibiotic negatively impacts a broad spectrum of bacteria...including bacillus (which is why it's used in the first place).  any comments on the other links in that post?  any thoughts on the longer study i posted late last night?

>Saying that "fumagillin comes from stonebrood" is a great
oversimplification....

i don't think it is....it is as accurate as "penicillin comes from bread mold".  these antibiotic substances are produced by these specific microbes to inhibit competition from other microbes for (what is always) a limited food supply.  no, no one is getting up at 6am to milk the stonebrood, but in the stonebrood fungus is where fumigillin is produced...both in nature, and in the factory.  it is not synthesized.

>We are at the beginning of understanding what it really means to *have
healthy colonies*, which everyone agrees we don't now generally have.

am i wrong in thinking that the widespread use of treatments and artifical feeds are common factors among unhealthy colonies?  does anyone else (besides dee) have a "bounce back" story from ccd (repopulating deadout equipment from survivors without fumigating or treating, and getting a good honey crop the same year...in the desert)?  if so, how come we aren't hearing about them?

>Microorganisms include the beneficial, the innocuous and the plagues.

no argument here...but given the sheer number of microbes in any hive, and in the environment in which the bees live and work (not to mention humans, our pets, our livestock, our crops, etc), it is worth noting that except under the most extreme crowding conditions (like row crops, like conventional chicken farming, like farming salmon in nets, etc), microbial caused disease is actually quite rare...and even more rarely fatal.  there is no "mandate" for balance, or the "right" for any organism to live a long time...but how many microbes are you actually scared of encountering?  100?  1000?  how often do you become infected?  ...compare this to the number of microbes you encounter every day.  infection is rare.

>I would suggest that if
you don't get hard questions like these that you are preaching to a
compliant choir. But it is what you would get from hard-boiled
scientists. Don't expect them from a gullible public that simply wants
to be told what to buy and where to get it. SHOW ME, don't tell me.

...given that "chemical free" is what the membership of the nebraska state beekeeping association voted for as the topic of their yearly gathering...given that the theme for EAS next year (according to their own newsletter)is "Celebrate the Bretheren, Beekeeping Without Chemicals" and includes both Dee Lusby and Erik Osterland as speakers (advertised over a year in advance in their spring 2008 newsletter).

http://www.easternapiculture.org/programs/journal/Spring2008.pdf

...given the busy speaking schedule that Michael Bush seems to have, given the steady stream of requests that we seem to be getting for speaking, given the difficulties that beekeepers seem to be having, and given the abundance of advice and anecdotes from scientists that see a real problem, and are not treating their own bees, that this is more than a "fad"....hardly, as you put it, a "gullible public".  there is nothing to "buy"...and if i wasn't interested in intense scrutiny, i wouldn't be sticking my neck out on bee-l.

"SHOW ME" is exactly why ramona and i went to arizona twice this spring and went through over 600 hives with dee.  we didn't come to this by trying to be "radical", "different", or even "green".  we didn't want to use treatments in our hives....and "the establishment" of beekeeping science didn't offer any help in this regard...so we found someone who was not only being successful, but was willing to be open about what she was doing and shared her successes and failures freely.

after we started down this road several years ago, it became clear that the bees (kept conventionally) are not doing well.  did you not post this spring about 90% die offs in your own area?
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0806A&L=BEE-L&P=R968&I=-3
"I have seen 90% losses this year and I think it is due to colonies being in poor condition going into winter."

offlist, i've been asked why i did not include the longer study in my original list of links.  the truth is, it was 36 pages long, and i didn't want to make any conclusions or claims without going through it carefully before posting and commenting.  i didn't have a chance to do so until late last night, and there was pressure (both on and off list) to provide references ASAP.  my "list of references" was put together hastily, and for that, i apologize.

deknow

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