> I already quoted Katie Lee, of BIP, who 
> pointed out the shortcomings of the BIP surveys.

Yes, everyone in the business of responding to inquiries from beekeepers is
quick to qualify their assertions, as they don't have time to answer a
tedious critique from someone not selected as a referee by a journal, but at
the same time do not want to insult anyone. 

This is an incredibly circuitous spin on what was a straightforward statement. She said the survey data was big, messy, and full of apparent correlations which could not hold up to scrutiny. 

As an example of a correlation, which population contains more sick people: those visiting doctors, or those not visiting doctors? The fact that more people are sick in the population that is visiting a doctor _does not_ therefore mean that doctor visits cause illness. 

By the same logic, we see that the observation that beekeepers who feed lose more hives than beekeepers who don't feed, may have nothing to do with feeding. More likely, the beekeepers who don't feed have bees in much better areas, leave more honey on the hives, and have hives in generally better condition.

By the way, referring to my friendly correspondence with Katie Lee as "a tedious critique" adds nothing to the quality of this discussion. I have tried to avoid such comments, why don't you?

P

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