> Jim seems to think beekeepers are for the most part too stupid to
> train.
I resent that.
I said nothing of the sort.
What I said was that most beekeepers lack skills and/or motivation.
I said nothing about ability.
Let me provide some very specific examples of what I meant:
1) Please tell us where you currently get media appropriate for
culturing foulbrood. If you make it, list your ingredients
and recipe.
2) Please tell us what your favorite stain is for highlighting
nosema spores on slides when looking at midgut contents.
What is the stain you'd like to use, but can't afford?
What are the minimum and maximum size of nosema spores
in microns, and what does this imply for large-scale
screening efforts?
3) Lastly, please explain to us in brief how you prepare a sample
for an electron microscope. :) (Hey, you said "electron
microscope", and you have not made any correction, so I'll
take you at your word that you have some hands-on experience!)
The above (except for #3) should be trivial if you are planning
on teaching others how to "diagnose", so any delay in responding
will indicate that you yourself lack specific experience and
factual knowledge basic to even the simple types of diagnosis
you propose to teach. (Note that I said nothing about intelligence.)
> I really can not believe there are beekeepers around
> (except maybe Jim) which believe that the current die off
> is because of a single NEW problem.
Something else for me to resent, as your summation is not
only clearly at odds with what I said, but both puts words
in my mouth I never spoke, and implies assumptions in my
head that I would never make. (As always, I meant what I
said, and I said what I meant.)
I don't think that we have evidence yet to support a claim that
CCD is or is not caused by a single factor, nor do I think that
the evidence currently at hand supports any claim that the
factor(s) are new.
In fact, the exact symptoms being called "CCD" have been seen
before, at least in the mid-1970s and in the 1960s. I'm not
certain about "disappearing disease" symptoms prior to the 1960s,
as I can't seem to find clear symptom lists prior to the 1960s.
(Anyone with a clue on this, please e-mail me.)
So, to summarize:
1) You proposed tooling up with tools that may not be
appropriate, as no one knows what tools are required
at this point.
2) You proposed educating and equipping beekeepers when a
better investment would be to fund a ramp-up of capacity
and throughput at existing labs, where "quality control"
can be more than an empty phrase.
3) What we clearly don't need is yet another layer of
bureaucracy to hold its hand out for the few dollars
that will be allocated to "CCD", even if it has a
laudable goal. We have existing groups that train
people on a regular basis, so learn to play well with
others, rather than creating yet another stand-alone
effort.
4) We don't need ANY efforts other than "R&D" right now.
When "R&D" comes up with something akin to "an answer",
THEN we can decide how to socialize whatever best
practices are considered appropriate. We may need
every single dollar for the "R&D".
But other than the above, we are in perfect agreement. :)
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