At 10:44 AM 4/5/02 -0500, you wrote: > So, while we cannot credit ALL the crop's value to the bees in your >sense, there is another sense in which that crop would not exist without the >bees. I think you hit upon a key point. We are talking about several different concepts of what 'value' means. Are we talking about: - Strictly the value or work the bees do. The crop price minus labor, land, and other costs = value of the bees. - The contribution in total crop value that can be attributed directly by bee pollination, which would not occur without the bees, or would be performed by hand or other expensive method. - The total value of the crop produced that would not have been produced if bees were not present (including those crops that would simply not be grown because of low yields). I think a fair statement might be that so many billion dollars of crops were produced because of the bees and that many of those crops would simply not be produced without them. That's not to say the bees are worth the sum total of the crops, but rather bees contribution enables billions of dollars of crops to be produced that would not otherwise be produced. A hive obviously does not have a direct value of $3000, but it certainly could have contributed a critical component allowing $3000 or more worth of crops to be produced. I think the terms and goals need to be better defined before one can begin determining if the data collection/estimation methods were appropriate or accurate enough. -Tim