>Might the controls and treated bees survive longer if the cage trials started with bees of diverse ages?  I don't know.

>As I tell my students in our Online Classes, experiments are seldom perfect, but we do the best that we can based on experience and financial limitations.

Great feedback. Thank you for the detailed and helpful response.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, I get the sense that there are some general concerns about the conclusions reached relative to many aspects of the research under consideration, but the concerns themselves are also subject to some uncertainty. Or to borrow the well-worn colloquialism, 'The perfect is the enemy of the good'.

So as it is with all scientific inquiry, we've not reached the end of the road but have rather opened up another avenue of exploration relative to these beguiling insects.

Thanks again for your insights. I appreciate your contributions here- I've learned a lot from you.

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