Maryam Henein: "I speak French and beeks have told me directly that they 
are seeing hives overflowing with bees and that they are increasingly doing 
better. if you don't speak directly to them then it's all hearsay/"

Yes, I suppose so, but then what you have called “empirical proof” is 
hearsay as well from where I’m sitting.  You have talked to some 
beekeepers, and Bob has his sources, but where’s the stuff that could be 
published in a peer review journal, or even ABJ?  That’s the kind of stuff 
that makes the case for me.  It just seems that you are so eager for what 
you are saying to be true that you don’t feel you have to get the hard data 
to really prove it, or look at other possible explanations for why this 
might be happening.  If there weren’t, as Jim has pointed out over and over 
again, compelling reasons to use these systemic pesticides, we could just 
call up the precautionary principle and leave it at that, but there are, at 
least in the minds of the farmers who use them. And it’s not just greed, 
although there is an element of that in almost everything we do in the name 
of making a living isn’t there?  

Respectfully, 
Steve Noble  

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