In a way Bill is right,  Kirsten is setting herself up as judge and jury of whats Scientific,  and that is what she was hired for.   
We have to realize that we here are the 1% the people who read and study bees at a level that most find extremly boring. but the question is,  are we the targetr audience?  then add in the commercial beeks,  real hard to get the pros to read much about what they do every day.  do they,  yea  but slowly and a little here and there.
So what is the target?  while many of us are not happy with some of the directions ( personaly, the article on Insurance in last months made me cringe)   its not up to us.  Kirsten's job is defined by the Dadants.   I am quite sure they read.  Its up to them to decide if the want to continue with ABJ being the magizine of record for beekeeping,  or is they want to let it shift to the soft side and increase subscriptions by playing to the masses.
Lets really face it,  except for those of us who are bee freaks ( which includes all of us here) Reading ABJ has always been very dry and boring.  Colsuns writing is fantasicly acurate and scientific,  and dry as popcorn with no butter,  rehash after rehash of  someones med size bee operation?  oh  and how many of us actually read the honey market report?  if your not selling 10K pounds it doesnt really matter to you.     So in this thread, Kirsten has  been mixing it up  does it help?  hard to say  for  many of us,  no  were not happy.   But do we actually matter?
That is the real question  a decision has to be made at ABJ, (BC has already shifted IMO, and yes my subscription is expired)  stick with the hardcore,  or shift to the hobby, save teh earth types?   Research has shown those people are good for 3 years.  assuming they know nothing about ABJ for the first year,  thats maybe 2 seasons for many of them,  but they outnumber us die hards,  so   hows the math work out??  heck if I know.
Myself,  I love Clarence and Randys writings,  even if they are boring reading,  the facts are great.  I despise the fact every wacko researcher who poisens bees in a lab gets written up,  but great work like Ried and Sponslers get ignored,  any ground truth on pesticides is verboten,  but  we can lie about organics without verification.....   the last 3 part series on the govermental /Monsato cover up by Ross Conrad made me leave BC,  so far ABJ is still hanging in there. but hey  just my thoughts,  to which  we are all entitled.

The real question for me is what choice is there?   I have no real options left.  Bee-l is great,  but no updates on the honey market here.

Charles
   

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