>I honestly think the onus is on the research community in this case.
>Dee is a successful commercial beekeeper who keeps bees without using
>what she likes to call "dopes". 
>She is not, nor does she pretend to be, a research scientist.

There is a lot of negativity toward research in the beekeeping world and
much of it is justified. When viewed from the outside, it appears that
scientists spend an awful lot of time and money on things that don't matter
much to the rest of us. 

However, when non-scientists start describing what "works" and what doesn't,
it is worthwhile to examine their methods. Case is point: Dee has supposedly
kept bees alive without treatment for years. Why is this so? It may have to
do with reducing the size of the cells, or not. 

It may have to do with the fact that they have been breeding from the
survivors and have developed a strain of bees that can co-exist with mites.
It may be that they have an isolated population that has produced inbred
weakened varroa which are no longer lethal.

The point is, in all of this there is no attempt to ferret out the actual
cause and effect. There are no controls, no peer review, no independent
verification. Just endless championing of far-fetched notions based on
anecdotal evidence. 

Good scientists make a great effort to gather unbiased information and
construct theories based on the observations. In the scientific community it
is inexcusable to doctor the results to fit some preconcieved theory. And
recently, a scientist has been sent to jail for it.

"Poehlman oversaw a lab where nearly a dozen students and postdoctoral
researchers carried out his projects. At 50, with his career in ruins and
his reputation destroyed, Poehlman could only hope to avoid one final
humiliation: becoming the first researcher sentenced to prison for
scientific misconduct. When scientists use their skill and their
intelligence and their sophistication and their position of trust to do
something which puts people at risk, that is extraordinarily serious, the
judge said." -- www.nytimes.com

In the bee industry there is no real accountability. In 30 years I have seen
the most ridiculous ideas and products presented in the bee magazines, both
in articles and advertising. I have seen people spend hundreds and thousands
of dollars on these ridiculous ideas and products. Buyer beware.

pb

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