Hi:

Peter commented: "You can't do everything and you can't spend millions on
things that have *apparently* little potential. Researchers are a favorite
whipping boy around here. I have stayed in the discussion because I am at
heart a beekeeper."

I'd have to agree with Peter.  One has to choose what avenues of research
to pursue - and that choice often is not totally left to the researcher.
For example, each of the bee labs has a specific mission, and each
scientist has to be accountable to the lab director AND in the case of both
federal laboratory and academic researchers, the decision also is
influenced by who, if anyone, will fund the research.  Competition for
research funds is keen -- many agencies fund less than 1 out of 8
proposals, some far less than that.

Let's try an analogy. Imagine if you offer pollination services, and you
had to spend 2 weeks preparing a proposal to each prospective grower, and
then 1 or of 8 to 10 actually hired you, and then they decided to negotiate
a lower bid price.  Let's see, that's 2 weeks for each bid -  why 2 weeks?
Proposals are a form of detailed bid.  They typically are 10-16 paqes of
text with a review of relevant literature, the proposal itself, the
research plan, and possibly a Quality Assurance Plan and maybe even a
Safety Plan, plus a detailed budget for each year of the research, and
resumes for all investigators and principal staff)-  you usually end up
with 20+ pages of detailed text). Proposals for large scale research may
run to over 100 pages -- with no assurance of success.  So, back to our
analogy, you'd have to spend 20 weeks preparing the bids to your 10
growers, and hopefully, you'd get a contract from 1 or 2 -- but you
wouldn't know until just before the bees are needed.  Oh, did I mention,
that there is usually almost a year delay from time of submission to
receipt of funding for a successful proposal -- and proposals are only
accepted once a year on a specific day.  Three months at best, six months
from some agencies, and I've waited up to two years before getting the
money from some funding sources.  AND, you usually have to write a
completely different proposal for each "bid" -- the agencies ask whether
the proposal or any part of it has been submitted to any other potential
funding source.  So, here our analogy to pollination bids falls down,
because you probably could only submit one bid to one grower at a time, if
you had to follow our rules, and could only re-submit after receiving a
rejection, which almost always comes the week after the current year's new
bid date has passed.  The agencies do this deliberately to keep down the
number of resubmissions.  So, you've just lost another year.

Although some of my academic colleagues might disagree, research is a
business.  Like the beekeeping business, it has associated costs -- and it
has competition, and it involves intellectual property rights, patents,
copyrights, etc.  The complaint is that scientists don't publish emerging
results on this list.  Well, I'd like to, but the journals won't accept
work that has already been published - I can tell you about things we are
doing at a beekeeping meeting, but the moment that I write it down, it is
considered to have been published.  The patent/copyright folks will
immediately declare anything that we invent to have been disclosed to the
public and as such can't be patented.  I suspect that if you had invented a
new uncapper, Ross Rounds, a hive lifter, etc. and couldn't patent it
because you talked about it on Bee-L, you'd not stay in business very long.

Unfortunately, we don't have patrons that just give us money to research
whatever we like.  Some researchers are lucky enough to have a salary paid,
and maybe get a little bid of discretionary money.  Others, like us, have
to find every nickel for everything from salaries to travel to research to
the pens on our desks.  Most scientists have to find the dollars to support
their research.

Finally, a person does not have to have a degree or be employed as a
scientist to conduct research.  There are many examples of successful and
influential researchers who conduct studies because of personnel interest -
their day job may be completely different.  And most anyone can conduct
research - we published a paper in SCIENCE in 1985 of a very successful
study conducted with a large group of beekeepers (researchers) from the
Seattle/Tacoma area.  However, few researchers have the resources or are
willing to take the economic risk that Dee Lusby has.  Most of us, like
you, need to get paid and try to avoid bankruptcy.

As per Peter's comments about being a whipping boy - like Rodney
Dangerfield, we often don't get any respect. It always saddens me to see
this negative attitude, and like Peter, I stay with the list because I like
bees and most beekeepers.  I learn a lot from both.  But, once in a while,
I'm tempted to unsubscribe when the vitriolic comments start up.

And then I remind myself that there are fundamental similarities and
differences among the groups.  I'd say most bee keepers and bee researchers
like to work with bees.  But, beekeepers want to keep every colony alive
and well and want to make honey, pollinate, etc.  They don't want to do
research, but do want answers -- and quick.

Researchers by nature have to be skeptics.  We deliberately set out to
prove the null hypothesis. You often set out to prove your own opinion or
concept is wrong, rather than trying to prove that your favorite idea is
right.  That may seem strange, but its fundamental to objectivity.  Also, a
lot may hang on the outcome of your research.  I for one do not want to say
I have found the magic bullet for controlling mites unless I am absolutely
sure that it will work and won't harm bees.  So, I'm cautious about
premature proclamations.  Sorry, but if I wasn't this way, I'd not make a
very good scientist.

As my mother used to say, I was born with the word WHY? on my lips, and I
still ask that question every day.

Cheers

Jerry






Jerry J. Bromenshenk
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http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees