Joe Waggle wrote:
>The key point here is that everybody has the option of either ignoring,
>reading, and or responding to letters posted.  Most members of this list
>are by now well aware of who's who, and should therefore adopt the
>courtesy of ignoring posts from those they are opposed to.

Hello Joe,
It has never worked that way on this list. BEE-L is focused on
science, not just exchanging theories. A new theory will usually be
challenged until proven right or wrong. If someone can't present
evidence that what he claims is true, he will be challenged again
whenever he brings it up.

New ideas are always welcome, but people must realize that when they
fail to prove their point, they should let go until they have proof to
back up their theory. Continual repeating like a mantra will not make
it true, either is it courteous to others who have heard the same
thing over and over already.

>It takes two to tango.  And the solution is simple, read those you agree
>with and ignore the rest.

I have been ignoring posts from some "natural" advocates for a long
time, thinking they will eventually realize few people are taking them
seriously. But I also believe we have a collective responsibility to
keep the list on course. Especially when there starts to come bad
advice like in the feeding honey thread. (feeding honey-->AFB)

It looks to me that there are few (if any) of the natural advocates
that really make a living from beekeeping. Or that produce any
significant honey crop / do any pollination. I think this should be
made clear. It is not only survival that matters. If the bees don't
produce any honey they are not useful to most of us. Small colonies
will not do much pollination either.

Now let's say we were to select for bees that were best adopted to
survival without interference from man. Firstly they don't need to
produce more honey that they can eat during winter. Much better use
the energy on reproduction. That will benefit in the long run.
So we would have bees that swarmed a lot, and didn't give any surplus
honey. That is natural bees to me, what evolution would revert to if
we stopped selecting.

In an answer to Bob you wrote:
>Most beekeepers regress with their survivors.  Survivors tend to have low
>brood viability.  So one needs to regress the first year, and then select
>for queen fundamentals and at least 95% viability

Lets see if I got this right: small cells force beekeepers to select
for bees with less brood production. Is that what you say?

There is a question I asked before but didn't get an answer to. This
is important to know, and I will explain why. There are beekeepers in
Europe that put a lot of work in changing foundation in the belief
that you are doing well and producing honey from your small cell
operations. Some with 500+ hives, relying on it for their livelihood.
There is nothing said by the advocates here about the need for
changing to a different breed of bees during the process. I think it's
fair to those to explain the downsides with the process, don't you
also think so Joe?

So will you please let us know how much honey you bees were producing
before the varroa entered, and what average you are making now. If the
other small cell advocates would also join with their results, it
would give us a better idea of what to expect.

-- 
Regards

P-O Gustafsson
[log in to unmask]  http://beeman.se

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