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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
"E.t. Ash" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 12 Dec 2017 07:25:34 -0500
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a Peter Borst snip followed by > my comment... 
To deal with the predictable changes in
their environments, all taxonomic groups have evolved genetically programmed
timing mechanisms. These govern seasonal cycles in physiology and behaviour that
optimise survival and reproductive success, and have been formally described as
circannual rhythms.

>I hear folks in various university departments (most loosely associated in some way with biological science) use the term optimal in this or that fashion and quite often it is a good clue or sign to me they don't know what they are talking about. This theft of clever phrases from other professions is common in academia here and really in my mind suggest a lack of imagination and a shallow understanding of the concept.  At the very basic level there is 'optimal' in the engineering (efficiency) sense and there there is 'optimal' in the economic (basically efficiency with input and output prices included) and neither of these are really totally known without FULL KNOWLEDGE of past, current and future events.

>I have long thought honeybees are a pretty good example of a species that display behavior that is highly efficient from an economic prospective but optimization is something that even humans struggle to achieve in this less than predictable world we live in.

Gene in Central Texas  

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