Bob writes

> In fact the age old point that you can only believe half what you read on the internet is the position of many *which do not read the internet*.

Let me get this straight: the people who don't read on the internet are in the position to know what you can believe when you go there. That makes no sense at all. How would they know? However, if you read only work published in reputable journals, like the Journal of Economic Entomology, Apidologie, etc. you can be pretty sure that it is peer reviewed and decent science. So that's what I do. Does it matter that much that these journals are also available on the internet? Does that make them automatically only half true?

for example

May-June 2009

> This special edition of Apidologie devoted to Bee Conservation, we have asked some of the world’s leading experts to bring together current knowledge on the current status of bees and their conservation, and on factors determining bee abundance and biodiversity, across broad geographic horizons and across a wide taxonomic breadth, with the aim of identifying major trends and knowledge gaps.  

> Eight of the 12 review articles in this issue have identified pesticides as a potential or realised cause of bee decline. Recent (spring 2008) honey bee losses in SW Germany due to neonicotinoid poisoning led the German federal government to ban temporarily such insecticides as seed dressings to prevent further bee losses, a position that other EU countries and environmentally aware farmers are also following. Bee-keepers act as ready surveillance monitors for acute pesticide poisoning of honey bees. Yet the impacts of the neonicotinoid mis-use incident in SW Germany on other bee species and invertebrate biodiversity at large are unknown but undoubtedly profound, as are the sublethal effects of pesticides on all bee species.

* * *

I would just like to add one small note. Much is made of the role that beekeepers play in helping to produce our food supply. However, most of the work of getting food raised and on the table is done by other people, who also have the right to make a living.

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