>Did I Say Anything About Organic?  I don't think so.

No, you didn't use the word organic, and perhaps it's a good word to 
avoid.  Implicitly and explicitly you talked about success, though.  My 
concern is that we not limit our ideas of successful beekeeping to methods 
that work for almond pollination, 500+ hives, and full-time livings.  I 
think this should especially apply to the broadly defined organic camp, 
which is why *I* emphasized organic.

As for your questions of Dee, I think they were exceedingly appropriate for 
the purpose of proving that the days of beekeepers across the country 
having the option of switching combs around, not monitoring for varroa, and 
not interrupting other activities on account of varroa have not returned.  
And I agree with that point.  (Correct me if that's not a fair summary.)  I 
chose to pursue a tangent that related to questions like yours and the 
limits of how such questions should be applied.  

As to what you implied, I assumed you asked about almond pollination, 500+ 
hives, and full-time livings because they represented a kind of gold 
standard for success.  And for a certain segment of North American 
beekeeping, I reckon they do.  I wanted to point out that for other 
segments that might very well not.  Aren't full-time livings connected to 
the prior discussion as a measure of success?

>I asked how many, where,
>and who -- and if they contribute anything much at all to the productive
>output of the industry.

I, too, would love to hear a direct answer to those questions.  I was very 
glad to see you ask them.  And I thought they were well posed, leaving very 
little room for evasiveness.  I certainly hope my pursuing a tangent won't 
get in the way of that happening.  I don't see why it should.  Of course, 
the absence of an answer is one kind of answer, but I'd prefer to hear it 
explicitly.

> and leave me out of any
>discussion of organic, at least until the term is understood by all to mean
>the same thing.

I only meant to point out how what I took to be some of your standards of 
success would apply to (broadly defined) organic beekeeping.  Of course, 
the term organic will never be understood by all to mean the same thing.  
Moreover, I think the usefulness of the term is directly proportionate to 
the degree that it's not tied to *anybody's* strict definition.

Eric

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