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----------------- Original message (ID=CD662174) (61 lines)
-------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 10:17:37 +1200
To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology
<[log in to unmask]>
From: Robert Mann <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: drone trapping

K wrote
>> Unless it is your assertion that upon finding that male bees are
>> mostly useless has led male researchers to quickly abandon any research
>>into  the subject, lest they have to publish such findings, which would
>>reflect badly on males the world over?

To which Bob H responded:
>I liked the ring of this and can't wait to hear R's reply!

        I had not thought the list should be bothered with the obvious
answer to this, because it's not only obvious but also rather unpleasant;
but since it has been requested here it is.
        My 'assertion' was that the male bee has been researched very
little.  Instead of acknowledging this fact, K slips in the "finding" that
they are mostly useless  -  a textbook example of begging the question.
This is not logical argument; I hope readers will ask themselves what,
instead, it actually is.
        What I had pointed out, upon which nobody (especially K with her
question-begging) has offered any logical dispute, is that as long as the
roles of the drones within the hive remain so very little researched, it
cannot be justified to sacrifice any large fraction of them e.g. in some
attempt at varroa control.  Such a purge might do more harm than good; we
just don't know.
        K's red herring is a good example of where ideology will get you.
It has nothing to do with reason.
        And of course the rest of the answer is that, even if it had been
actually shown that the drones are mostly useless, that fact would not have
any implication for males of other species  -  except in the minds of those
fomenting antagonism against the largest minority of our species.
        Yes, all this human ideology is irrelevant to bees  -  which is
exactly why I have been warning that drone-slaughter is of ideological
rather than scientific origin.   Dave G8MZY's simple logic on drone numbers
is infinitely preferable.

R