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Date: | Thu, 7 Jun 2012 21:37:49 -0600 |
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On 07/06/2012 9:01 AM, Adrian Duehl wrote:
> As a group of people interested
> in the issue and distributed across the country you are ideally situated to
> carry out your own research project to figure out how pesticides affect
> your bees. Ten beekeepers each with two treated and two control hives could
> produce some excellent data about the effects of pesticide exposure in
> different locations.
I agree. What has become increasingly apparent here, the design of any
experiment is the sticker. That is our beef with the study under
discussion. It seems that a researcher with no idea about bees
consulted beekeepers with no idea of science.
Jerry offered some very useful ideas and we have long been concerned
about the tendency to make sweeping assumptions and to average in a way
that might conceal effects on individual bees or overlook such things as
increased variability in colony performance which might not be
significant to a researcher, but which might be serious to a beekeeper.
This neglecting the obvious objection to assuming that a few localized
and time-limited observations -- or lack of adverse observed happenings
--are representative enough to be the basis of conclusions. Obvious
bias in reporting of episodes is emerging as a problem, too.
> They could also address many of the problems with the
> study like standardizing the estimation of hive strength and
> management intensity. By coordinating with a researcher interested in
> the results you could probably also get bee samples analyzed for
> pesticides and help with the data if you needed assistance with
> statistics and such.
I think this is a plan. Do I detect some interest in designing and
managing such a task? Those interested would certainly need a leader.
(We are a leaderless, disparate and occasionally fractious group. That
is not a bad thing. It is possibly our principal strength.)
I can't help but also detect some sympathy for the authors of that
unfortunate paper, and noted the suggestion that the paper "has done an
excellent job getting people in the beekeeping community thinking about
how to accurately evaluate honeybee pesticide exposure, and consider the
implications of that exposure."
I find that idea surprising considering that these questions have been
in open discussion here for years, if not decades, and in bee meetings
-- and it seems that Jerry to name only one has a handle on the problem.
I could name more who I would have thought to have done deep thinking on
the topic. Perhaps not, or maybe it was again time to take a fresh look
and debate the issue. Maybe there is no way to "accurately evaluate
honeybee pesticide exposure". (Banish the thought.)
However, maybe it is true. Maybe this did raise important issues, even
if they were not the ones intended. Sometimes a high profile screw up
can lead to a total rethinking of a problem and if so, then what looks
like a huge embarrassment may turn out for the best.
Interesting thoughts. Thanks for the perspective.
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