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