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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Matthew Smart <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 1 Jul 2015 11:07:52 -0400
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I assume that is a rhetorical question meant to imply that what I stated is rather obvious.  And I mostly agree that it does seem obvious - but thats why science is so beautiful - it gives us the ability to actually know.  

To answer the question though, I'm not sure if there are any animal examples in which health is not dependent on nutrition.  I suspect it largely depends on how you define "health".  Regardless, I encourage you to find out.

Further, the only reason anyone knows that nutrition impacts health is because someone measured it and found a relationship. Otherwise its simply anecdotal evidence. Perhaps surprisingly, even with regard to human nutrition, there is a ton of pseudoscience out there claiming things like, 'eating x will boost immunity, or eating y will improve health' with no actual basis in fact, so you can imagine where we are on the honey bee nutrition front. 

Secondly, and related, is that in order for anything to change with regards to legislation, policy, or management to improve the situation for bees we must possess actual science (that is, data) quantifying that what we think is happening is really happening, even if it seems obvious.  Everything else is just opinion and anecdotes which will never actually affect change (improving bee forage landscapes in this case) because its much easier from a societal and governmental standpoint to do nothing.  

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