a Jerry Bromenshenk followed by > my comments... 

From correspondence that I've received from some members of the TF group, many seem to think that all problems with honey bees are due to the wrong-headed attitudes of old timers like myself.  We are the problem.  And to emphasize the we are the problem, many like to address me by  you F****r, you and your kind F****d it all up.  I'm not sure that there is a corollary between being  a TF'er who writes me to tell  me how I and our courses are the problem, and foul language, or if I'm just lucky in terms of those who like to write to me or address me on Facebook.

>First off great thread and I may make other comments or send folks a personal email about individual post just to keep this one a reasonable length.  To Jerry... well brother don't feel so special in that I have received the same 'treatment' and I am essentially treatment free. Perhaps it is just an old school thing where our use of the language and theirs is totally different? Most likely some folks with limited experience and limited book knowledge just cannot stand the idea of looking foolish or uneducated. There does seem to have been some reinvention of the bee language where old terms have been forgotten and new terms invented to fill the empty space.  I guess I could make some of the exact same comments (and potty mouth use of the language) by the commercial crowd's behavior but with that crowd any mention of science or learning makes you become a primary subject for verbal abuse.  My we have come a long way in terms of personal interaction and respecting others? NOT!

Speaking of the TF crowds lack of understanding of science a basic graduate course in statistic typically starts off with the understanding of hypothesis and null hypothesis and the basic rule that you do not prove the hypothesis but are attempting to reject the null hypothesis. This gives added weight to the hypothesis but you do NOT actually prove anything. The creation of hypothesis/null hypothesis  sounds easy, but is not... not quite so simple as my wife's first mentor (he won the nobel with the bee dance fellow) who would say...'you need to toss out 1 hypothesis before breakfast' < since he was Austrian the translation may not mean what I think it should mean.

Treatments... I guess the thing that really got me in trouble with the TF crowd is explaining to them that everything within the boundaries of an experiment is a treatment.  You have variable you are trying to measure and these are treatments. You also have 'controls' (now these may be classified as positive or negative) and these are also considered 'treatments' from a statistical and experimental point of view. Within the boundaries of the experiment doing NOTHING is still a treatment. UNtreatment, treatment free are imho simply made up terms with the down side being they have no precise meaning for the folks that use and abuse them.

History... I guess I had no appreciation for the problems folks had with varroa until they hired Dr Rangel for the bee research position here and a couple of my 'friends' insisted she hire me (it is a very part time job) to look after the bees at the lab.  These bees were purposefully purchased with queens from Hawaii since we are on the edge of the africanized zone.  At the get go we had students (primarily undergraduates at that time) doing experiments on varroa treatments and I allowed students to use my hives in one or two yards for their experiments.  We tested mite loads both at the lab (less than1 year old hives) and at a couple of my yards (2 and 3 year old hives) and the difference in mite loads was quite remarkable. Contractual work with large numbers of commercial bees now suggest to me that the difference in 'resisistance' or 'tolerance' (does splitting this hair really matter?) is even worse than this first experience suggested... someone (don't know who) is producing some very weak bees. I suspect (totally guessing here) as an industry we have lost or forgotten the ability to select for traits that enhance survival. 

Note... students when they get here (with or without bee experience) can kill hives just about as fast as varroa but with a bit of coaching and experience they do improve with time. I myself sometimes overlook that the largest benefit I get from beekeeping is the relationships I have formed with beekeepers, beekeeping scientist and students. 

I am a no treatment beekeeper quite by accident in that my view of bees is very utilitarian (thank you Peter B. for adding this detail to Bee-Line several years back).  My good beekeeping neighbor to the south of me informed me that he was trying to develop a non treatment bee and we have geographical and air space to overlap. I had obtained 3 initial initial packages and a good number of queens from him prior to this time..so much of my own stock was pretty close to his. I was/am not smart enough to know if this idea would work at that time but I had the clear idea that drone population was a part of the workings and did not wish to mess up his efforts if the idea had any possibility to succeed. < actually I think this is still true and is why setting a few non treatment queens in a sea of treated (you do not really wish to know with what) bees is simply foolish thinking.

Note... as one poster here and Liz Walsh at the Lab described in a article in the Kelley News letter... beekeepers have turned the ipm model up on it's head and we are now seeing the fall out from this lack of keeping to the model's design. I have wondered if here in the US if we are not pre programmed to NOT follow rules?  

In going forward (since my days of beekeeping are quickly coming to an end) I may well use an intermediate path (soft bond) approach to accomplish some short term goals.  As I said I am a very utilitarian beekeeper where by purpose drives everything.

Gene in Central Texas where the weather is poor and NOT appearing to get any better.....        

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html