Adrian said:

>> 4)  Millions have been spent this past half century on studies of the
>> waggle dance maneuver

Specifics to support this claim are required before anyone can accept it
as more than "pure 100% fact-free hyperbole".  It appears exaggerated, as
the terms "million dollars" and "bee research" are not often found in
the same sentence.

>> without, it seems to me, any real benefit to beekeepers.

If research was focused only on today's specific problems, it
would not be "research".  It would be mere "applications engineering".
As I used to say every year at budget time "If we knew what was to
come of our efforts, then it wouldn't be R&D."

>> Lately, by contrast, relatively meager funds have been
>> allocated toward the most pressing problems that beekeepers face.

and Bob added:

> I agree completely. For years our researchers wanted to study bee research
> which would have little impact on solving the problems of beekeeping.

I'm surprised at this sort of sweeping view.  Statements of this kind
are typically found in 95-page long tomes written out in longhand with
a #2 pencil, ones that also include references to The Illuminati,
Freemasonry, The Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberger group, et al.

Let's get real - researchers have to justify not only every project,
but every purchase and employee hour to those who control the funding.
While a beekeeper may not agree with the specific criteria used to
make every funding decision, I don't see many beekeepers putting their
money where their mouths are on this issue.

While bees are sometimes used in studies of things like "social insect
behavior", these researchers are simply not ever going to work on
practical beekeeping problems.  They would just as soon use ants for
their studies.  These research dollars have no chance of being diverted
to focus on bees, as bees were never the primary focus of their interest.
These dollars are not "wasted" in the eyes of those who parcel out the
pennies.  The science at issue is clearly interesting enough to warrant
funding, as there is never enough money to fund all projects.

Of the group of researchers who DO have specific interest in bees, they
all would just love to find a way to "make a difference".  They know that
the man or woman who, for example, can defeat varroa, need never pay for
their own drinks ever again in this lifetime.  They want to be loved.

Face it - researchers are JUST LIKE BEES.  You can't expect to control
what they do, but you can trust that the net result of the efforts of
a large number of them will be both positive and worthwhile, even though
you can't see much progress or make much sense of the bigger picture by
only watching one or two of them.

Researchers, just like bees, need care.
Neglect them, and they don't produce.
Abuse them, and they don't produce.

You want something specific researched?  Raise some money, and
publish a Request For Proposals.  Better yet, just send the money
to the Eastern Apicultural Society bee research fund, and let them
do all the grunt work of slogging through research proposals.
(I am sure that you can designate the general purpose to which
you would like the money put, and with a large enough contribution,
you might be able to fund a study single-handedly.)

But you gotta pay to play.
Ante up.


                jim (Who had a calculator and a non-linear equations
                 book confiscated at Baltimore-Washington Airport.
                 The security guy said they were "Weapons of
                 Math Instruction", and accused me of being a
                 member of the "al-Gebra" movement...)

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