I'll beg indulgence, and continue a thread of marginal value, as 
I've been reading these other forums for years, and can provide 
historical perspective. 

I have one nugget of useful beekeeping information at the end,
in an attempt to satisfy convention.

> It is also widely known that Beesource.com and the yahoo organic beek 
> list are more receptive to less rigid discussions about topics like 
> small cell and faith based beekeeping. 

That's not the case at all. Both groups are very rigid bastions of 
"faith-based beekeeping", dominated by a tiny number of 
self-proclaimed high priests who tolerate little else EXCEPT 
faith-based beekeeping dogma.  Both groups were created 
specifically to continue to discuss beekeeping practices that 
had been thoroughly discussed (and discredited) here.  When the 
posts to Bee-L became repetitive and shrill, those posts were not 
approved by the moderators, and they created their own groups, 
crying "censorship".  

As the second longest-standing member of BeeSource (since 2001) and a 
charter member of Dee's organic list, I can say with authority that 
any attempt to introduce ideas that contradict certain dogmas into 
their discussions is treated as openly hostile to their raison de etre, 
and gets one "thrashed", one's posts are edited/vandalized/censored, 
and one is forced to attempt to deal with vocal people who 
are openly hostile to education, experience, practical knowledge, 
and non-dogmatic thought.

Dee has overt "forum rules" that openly prohibit any discussion 
of any approach to beekeeping other than her personal definition 
of "organic".  BeeSource makes the classic error of defining
"number of posts" as an indicator of expertise, rather than what 
it is, an indicator of free time spend "posting".  

> If people wish to make those claims here its pretty much given 
> they will be thrashed for lack of references

The reverse is actually the case.  Both of the other groups are 
openly hostile to the "bigger tent" approach of expecting everyone 
to maintain the same standards of "reasonable speculation", 
"evidence for claims", and "rational discourse".  While these
other groups have an inherent cognitive bias, any idea, no matter 
how implausible it might seem, is at least given a fair hearing here.

Ideas presented here are subjected to close examination, and 
often the critiques can be scathing. (I myself am a purveyor 
of some of the more blistering critiques of fuzzy thinking.)  
But no one is openly censored, and no dogma is assumed as 
"true" as a precondition.  (The trick is to bang the ideas
together, and see which breaks first. Simple.)

> but they persist anyhow. 

And this is the compelling proof that even they realize 
that Bee-L is a forum that is more legitimate than their 
own dogmatic forums.  The persistent attempts to re-introduce 
what has been covered before (and been found wanting) here 
on Bee-L is clear evidence that they crave the approval of 
the "bigger tent" and seek to win the acceptance of the more 
rigorous examination of Bee-L. Despite the creation of their 
own private "Gilligan's Islands" of beekeeping, where science 
and the daily reality can be ignored at whim, they know that
they have exiled themselves, and are voluntary castaways, 
isolated from the mainstream.

I think it is hilarious that Dean ("Deknow") posted his plaintive
pleas about "personal attacks" here on Bee-L, when Dee Lusby 
herself recently had to paste Dean's ears back in public on her
"organic" list over certain comments he had for me.  The reason 
that Dean was so angry at me was that I had mentioned the lab 
results Dee had sent me about her massive Nosema losses.  Turns 
out that the losses were being kept "secret" from the members of 
the "organic" list, and I had inadvertently let the cat out of 
the bag.  Clearly, even very basic facts are verboten in some
forums.

We can thus conclude that "drinking the Kool-Aid" is not
an effective control method for Nosema ceranae.  Sadly, 
this is the only nugget of information of value to 
beekeeping in this thread, but it is a crucial and very
basic concept that can only be voiced on Bee-L.


  jim fischer  

( A Bee-L subscriber since his e-mail address was "att!research!jim",
  proving that he's been around longer than nearly everyone else )

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************