"What a shame that PAMs is trying to find better control agents for varroa on a few 10s of thousands of dollars, and $8M was squandered on this.  The global bee industry should be outraged."


I agree with Peter, too...funny invention, PLB!

Jerry, what I don't understand in this is how so much money can be thrown into an untried idea through "crowdsourcing".  I've spoken to a number of people I think are quite bright who are eagerly supporting this flow hive....I guess I just don't understand how they think.  Meanwhile, as you say, it's tough getting money for something that would truly benefit bees.  Like Varroa control.

Perhaps there is no appeal in supporting the "global bee industry".  What people want to support is bees.

I notice the same thing in deep-sea fish research.  It is expensive to explore the deep.  Government doesn't fund deep-sea biology projects anymore.  So those who want to learn about the animals in the deep sea are going to wealthy people who want to have fish named after them, or who like going down in a submersible (their own) with a scientist who can tell them what they are looking at.  Then the science gets done....on private money.

Randy has a donation tool for public donations on his "scientificbeekeeping" website.  Maybe that's what more of you should do....appeal directly to the public.  If the flow hive gets that much traction it seems like a better idea ought to do well also.  Or maybe I'm just an optimist....

Christina

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