I've tried to steer clear of the specifics of this thread.  But Kirsten's
specific mention of a private conversation between us opens this thread to
further discussion.

In writing my articles for ABJ, my target audience is beekeepers, not
scientists.  So I attempt to avoid cluttering my articles with excessive
details.  When say something such as that  bees start guarding at *about *19
days of age,  I could have gone on for paragraphs about how much plasticity
there is in the temporal polyethism of the worker honey bee, and cited
multiple studies of the observed ranges of initiation of guarding
behavior.  But in my opinion, that would have distracted from the points of
my article.

So instead, I assume that my readers realize that there is variation, and
simply cited Winston's book, which reviews the studies, and has a nice
illustrative graph.  I thought that that was a workable response to
Kirsten's suggested lengthy edit, and didn't realize that it would cause
her grief.

The fact is, there are scientific errors in articles by other authors
recently published in ABJ, but I don't feel that it is my job to try to
correct every one.  I do plan to write an article on common beekeeping
myths and misconceptions.

Bottom line, Kirsten and I are both busy people, trying to meet deadlines.
We've agreed to sometimes disagree, by adding the disclaimer to let Kirsten
off the hook.  And no, I don't know why she doesn't put the disclaimer
after other articles with obvious scientific errors.

Anyway, Kirsten and I need to work together.  Neither of us have time for
extended back and forth--I barely get each of my articles written by time
for submission, and accept that they are not perfect.  But I'm not
comfortable with allowing someone to publish words under name that I have
not written myself, so I do request final approval, which I don't think is
unreasonable. Once I put my articles online at my website, I welcome
informed comments,  regularly update them, and happily correct errors.

Can we now drop this "disclaimer" thread?

If you wish, start a new thread on the direction of ABJ or our need for a
trade journal.
You can also write Kirsten directly, or the publisher.  Gabe Dadant's email
is [log in to unmask]


-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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