>It is absolutely amazing the number of ways beekeepers
>individually or regionally can calculate losses or production -
>discussion for another day.

"First Liar Never Had a Chance"

That's what a beekeeper said to me years ago and I have never forgotten.

I don't think that the  reason  beekeepers lie to one another constantly is 
so much that they intend to  deceive  others (although there are some 
where that is the definitely the case) but rather that they have themselves
first and believe what they are saying., at that moment at least.

If we don't constantly monitor our own impressions, we never see that in 
action, but it is very real.  We remember selectively and sometimes forget 
details which would cast the experience in a totally different light.

We deceive ourselves constantly, and that may be a  good  thing.  If many 
of us faced the bald truths, we might quit beekeeping immediately.

What happens is that much of the time we see what we want to see or 
what we expect to see.  One of the  reasons I keep a public diary is to 
reveal how what we think we are seeing is not what is there.

That is also why I write here and why I don't mind at all, and am even quite 
pleased  if people attempt to disillusion me by pointing out oversights and 
errors in my logic.

If I defend a position strongly, it is only because I want to hear the other 
side(s) of the question.

I recall years ago I had a friend with whom I used to argue beekeeping.  
Every year we would debate some point and the next we would each 
discover that we had  converted  the other on some point and were each 
doing the opposite to what we had been debating without any awareness 
it had happened  until then.

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