> Allen said...
However there are
> persistent reports of the phenomenon and I think it is
> important to remain open-minded enough to test the idea.
> This particular claim is not going to go away until someone
> tackles it scientifically.
Your second quote, stating that “This particular claim is not going to go away until…” is contracting your earlier quote that you stated it is “important to remain open-minded enough”. ;)
Or should we assume when promoting the “best interest of science”, a ‘predetermination’ that something will be disproven, IS being ‘open minded enough’? ;)
Dave said
those that wish to mislead others will 'get
> away with it' or those that have been blinded by dogma
> cannot be refuted properly.
My feeling here is that we, more often than not, do not give folks the credit of having brains. There are MANY ways beekeepers are ‘mislead’, and if they fail, they learn a valuable lesson. That’s life! I don’t think it is of paramount importance that everything need be ’refuted properly’, because given time, the cream will rise to the top.
What we are really talking about is 'overall colony performance' and that is all that counts.
Take a segment of American beekeeping history; the introduction of different races. I don’t think the success of ANY race imported to America depended on the “scientific methodry” to determine its worth, “the worth and success was determined ONLY by performance in the beeyards”, and that’s how its always been for 'most things beekeeping'.
Please find me the scientific evidence that refuted or confirmed the worth any of a colony performance, before it was relized in the beeyards?
‘worth was only determined in the beeyards‘.
For example:
In 1865, only after the introduction of this strain, bee beeders were asking:
“We would like to hear from the experience of our subscribes with the Italian bees; who have none for sale, as we find that these who make a business of rearing and selling these bees, are not as reliable as they might be under other circumstances. We have seen no evidence yet that satisfies us that apiarians would increase their profits by introducing Italian bees into their apiaries.”
In 1880 Benton writes of Cyprian bees
"I have been delighted with my trip through these parts on account of finding a very superior race of bees—a race that I feel are sanguine, and when tested, will prove to be a boon to America; and as I am the first to import them, I hope to get enough to America to have the race established there in purity. There appears to be but one race of bees in the Holy Land, but they vary in color and in some other respects, and on this account I have procured some from almost every part.” Science fails here, and only in the beeyards did worth become known.
By 1905, the failure of the Cyprian bee and consumer demand, perhaps led to the importation of a gentler strain:
“There are gentle things in the Caucasus, even if recent dispatches from that part of the world would lead one to think otherwise. One of them is a bee. Although neighbor to the Syrian or Holy Land bee, which has a record among bees for temper and the ancestors of which, according to the writer of the Pentateuch, chased the ancient Hebrews with all the animosity of the Amorites, it is the most amiable of all known bees. While provided with a sting, as all bees should be if they are to be worth anything as honey producers, it is almost impossible to make it sting the human being.”
The Russian bee was being sold in USA before the scientific evidence on its worth was fully known. With claims that “we don’t think they will need treatments”, “we think the mode of resistance is brood break” etc. Worth was only determined at a much later date in the beeyards.
Joe
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/
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