> If you want to discuss climate change, 
> roundup and cancer, banning GMOs ,
> this is not the place. 

I'm sorry, but that is not any one person's choice to make for all the rest
of us.
If you do not wish to read or participate in a discussion, fine.
But everyone else is not obligated to share your preferences.
We have a moderator, and he has called a halt before when the wheels came
off a discussion or three.

"Climate change", "RoundUp", and "GMOs" all DIRECTLY impact bees and
directly involve bees.
I think that has been made crystal clear by posts in the past few weeks.

> Those are advocacy issues more 
> than scientific 

I understand that you do not accept much of current consensus and findings
in these areas. I always find it amusing that so many people are using the
gifts of science to disseminate their refusal to accept science all around
the planet via the internet.  But disagreeing with the consensus does not
make that consensus less "scientific", any more than not liking a ruling by
the Supreme Court makes it any less the law of the land.

> and a lot more heat than light.

The heat is the friction caused by rolling over those still in denial when
they throw themselves in front of the discussion.

I think it is valuable for even a casual beekeeper to understand things like
his honey is almost certain to contain glyphosate well above the level of
detection for even primitive equipment, and that climate change means that
apple pollination is a doomed business anywhere south of Quebec.  More
hurricanes early in the season resulting from climate change also means that
some coastal overwintering yards may not be good choices going forward.
There are a ton of implications, if one were to think pragmatically.

But pragmatic thinking requires some minimum level of informed reasoning,
and there is a very vocal and persistent attempt to disseminate what can
only be called "denial" about such simple topics here.  

And "here" is not at all representative of beekeeping as a whole,  which is
now a lot less male, a lot less white, and a lot less old than the average
of the subscribers of this list.  And these younger, darker, sometimes
feminine beekeepers really do care deeply about such issues.  So do their
customers, the ones who pay the bills.

Just one example of how much they care - Kelley is once again selling the
antique-style basswood section boxes for comb honey!  The demand for the
old-skool wooden sections is from those who want to make comb honey, but do
not like the plastic inherent in Ross Rounds, Hogg Cassettes, or even the
plastic clamshells that hold cut comb.  Or maybe it is the honey buyers who
are telling the beekeepers that plastic won't do.  Either way, we are back
to the 1800s  (not me, you will pry my Ross Round supers from my cold, dead
hands).

So, "Produced Using Organic Methods" or "Biodynamic Practices" or "Free
Range Bees" is not enough.  Even the packaging matters and to hell with the
efficiencies of  the more modern comb honey packaging, which everyone should
find superior.   And these people certainly have money.  You'd be shocked
what I get for an ounce of fresh-frozen local pollen when selling to the
health food stores, and what the health food store charges is obscene.  But
the stores simply cannot keep it in stock.  There are actual waiting lists
for my pollen.

A few dozen hives is just a hobby for me, but for many who read this list,
bees are how they eat and put their kids through college.  The shift toward
a set of baseline assumptions that are different from those of the
1960s-1980s is crucial to understand if one is to simply stay in business.


And how many?  

Of course there is a good answer, as science allows us to work out what is
possible long before we have the tools to implement the practical
application.  So here is the only slightly tongue in cheek answer (to the
original question, which was about the POINT of a pin, rather than the
head):

"It is dependent on the assumed mass of the angels, with a maximum of
8.6766*10^49 angels at the critical angel mass (3.8807*10^-34 kg)."

http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume7/v7i3/angels-7-3.htm
http://tinyurl.com/av5h6

Science!  
It works even with silly questions!

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