"I don't think anyone in the bee research community is at risk of falling victim to a scam journal"

Well, many do, Jim. Students in science disciplines who are looking for references to cite, included. There are many hundreds of open access journals out there now. Unfortunately for the uninformed, these predatory operations do a good job masquerading as the real thing.

"Also, the "grain of salt" is that we should recall that "Science" published the paper "A Metagenomic Survey of Microbes in Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder" in Sept 2007 with great fanfare, only to have those conclusions soundly and thoroughly refuted by "Historical presence of Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus in the United States" (American Bee Journal, November 2007)."

The journal "Science" has generally been a very sound and very respected source for top science news (along with the British journal "Nature") for many decades, with the best science minds out there serving as reviewers. ABJ by contrast is not rigorously peer-reviewed. "Great fanfare" isn't descriptive of the way Science or Nature do things. When their authors' work is refuted, it is not necessarily a bad reflection on the journal.

As scientists teach students: First, the idea. Second, the hypothesis. Third, the experiment. Fourth, and fifth, and sixth, etc....follow up corroboration via more experiments. Eventually, a theory. The ultimate: a LAW. In other words, truth is found after many many tests. All we do in peer review is to ensure that the scientific method and sound analytical procedures are employed. Critical to progress and ultimately, the ability to discern the truth is rigorous oversight of methods and analysis and many repetitions of the work, taken from different angles, to test the original hypothesis.

Christina

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