Greetings
I want to thank the moderators for allowing this discussion to
continue. In the age of information it is very difficult to stay on
top of a field or even a specialty. In fact, a recent radio story I
heard said that the most a *medical doctor* can hope for is *not* to
be fully prepared for each patient that comes through the door, but
rather, to be able to get the needed information in a timely way.

I have been completely surprised at how far along the effort to
create transgenic bees has already progressed. I think it is wise to
take the position that we mostly *do not know* what is actually going
on in these various labs, since much of it is not published widely,
if at all.

Finally, a comment was made that the Bee-List should be *about bees*.
Beekeeping and apiculture is a far-ranging field which encompasses
understanding of climate, weather, both wild and agricultural flora,
ecology, agricultural practices, legal issues -- the list could go on.

But the issue of transgenic bees, while perhaps already far out of
our hands, affects us all. Personally, I have tried to avoid
advocating a particular ideology, other than an attitude of
inquisitiveness.

Peter Borst
Ithaca, NY  USA

>A comprehensive, web-based atlas of the bee brain currently in
>development also will be helpful in providing a stronger
>neurobiological foundation for the study of genes and behavior in
>the honey bee. Early efforts to develop transgenic bees (Omholt et
>al. 1995; Ronglin et al. 1997; K. Robinson et al. 2000) suggest that
>there are no barriers to harnessing this technology.
>
>-- from: Annotated Expressed Sequence Tags and cDNA Microarrays for
>Studies of Brain and Behavior in the Honey Bee, by Charles
>W.Whitfield, et al