" I can understand the reluctance to depend upon big ag, "

Bee keeping will never depend on big ag if big ag refers to companies like Bayer.  Bee keeping is simply way to small an industry for big ag to give it more than slightly passing attention.  There is no money to be made by big ag doing anything with honey bees.  Just look at how much attention big ag has spent trying to learn how to use oxalic acid to control mites.  Were it not for Randy's shoe string efforts these new treatments would never get developed as by big ag could not make a penny from them.  The whole profit in the bee keeping industry is not sufficient to bring one single new product to market even if 100% of that profit were given  to big ag.

I am sure the only reason Monsanto has spent any money on bee issues is due to what they hoped to learn from bees as a model system they could then apply to real economic issues.  Plus maybe a tiny bit due to hoped for positive publicity which has clearly proven to not exist.  They clearly have done nothing they thought would earn them a return on the honey bee market.

Dick

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