> The big picture may "seem" accurate as portrayed by the authors, but how do you "know" its accuracy, especially when you find glaring errors? 

So they messed up on the Ukraine. You sure are making an awful big deal about nothing. The point is world production and it's just an estimate. I don't trust any numbers coming out of the Ukraine, so we might as well leave them off the map, doesn't make that much difference. 

> I was taught that when using Boolean logical analysis, the use of words such as "obviously" are used to support invalid inferences. 

Ergo, the use of the word obvious invalidates any statement? Look, some things actually are obvious; though if they are one wonders: why are we pointing it out?

> Then again, honeybees are tropical insects, and over extended periods of breeding, we may find that honeybees do not survive altitudes closer to the poles without human assistance.

Honey bees are NOT ALL tropical insects. Some species of honey bees are. Other subspecies have been living in cold climates for hundreds of thousands of years, without human assistance. Will we say humans are a tropical species, as well, since we originated in Africa? I am not a tropical species, that's obvious.

> Does the body size of individual bees get larger, or would latitudes closer to the poles produce larger colonies? 

Some of the largest colonies are produced in the tropics, where there is no need to reduce the cluster size. The individual bees are largest (Apis dorsata) and smallest (Apis florea) in the tropics, so that proves nothing. Perhaps the cold climate bee is *optimally sized* for cold climates.

> Bees seem to prefer a cluster width of an 8 frame box, so there is unused combs in a ten frame box.

Bees "seem to"? First, I don't even remotely agree with this statement. Second, the use of the construct "seems to" goes against what was said above (it's being used to support an invalid inference). 

Pete

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