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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Christina Wahl <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:57:24 -0400
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Eugene says:

If the crashing hives are right next to the thriving hives, are they not
both exposed to the same crops, treated or otherwise? If there's one thing
I've learned in 17 years, it's that hives in the same yard respond
differently to everything.

Probably, and I think you are right.  But don't you also think it's worthwhile to ferret out what is going on?  Some people study bee behavior, some people study bee physiology, some study other stuff.  We don't always spend our research dollars "wisely", that's for sure....and there are lots of examples (!!!) but usually, the intention is to learn something useful.    For **public-funded** studies in the USA there are independent experts (read other scientists) who must evaluate the research plan to catch problems before time and money are wasted.  They try their best to catch unnecessary or poorly-thought out projects before funding them.  There's not enough money to go around so the pressure is on to choose only the "worthiest" studies.  Note that this rigor of preliminary oversight doesn't necessarily apply to money from private foundations, unfunded work, or donations to independent investigators.  For them, the rigorous evaluation is supposed to happen when they send papers to peer-reviewed journals, where all the work....whether funded by the public or not....goes through evaluation before printing.  So you might say that projects funded by the public get twice the level of critical oversight.

For the most part I think public money is well-spent in research.

Christina

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