"There are these people that do all of this stuff, write papers on it, publish books on it, and everyone believes what they say, after all, why would they lie? The thing is that scientific studies cost money."
Ah yes the money/conspiracy thing. Fact is, most researchers that are not in the private sector are brutally honest. It is part of the whole "I am trying to find the truth" mentality they seem to have. Those crazy buggers are actually looking for the correct asnwer to their questions, go figure. It is the search for obejctive descriptions of the world around them that attracts them to science in the first place.
And for what it is worth most of the guys in the private sector are very honest too.
"Now the drug companies prosper when you have to dump drugs into a hive."
LOL - the sales of checkmite are probably somewhere on at the 10th decimal place on the Bayer earnings sheet.
"No one makes money off of nothing going into a hive so what does this tell us?"
It tells us that you never paid for your equiptment or your bees. The statement is false. I don't knwo about you, but I did pay for the stuff that went into my hives, and the hives themselves for that matter. Ever piece od wood, every nail, the glue, foundation, bees (well most of the bees) etc.
"Now to make all this treatment stuff work the way it is suppose to work one has to do it right. Certain things need to be done at certain times, or you mess up and lose your bees. Small Cell has to be done right or you lose your bees. The only difference I see is that Small cell takes less work and you don't have to dump all that money on all the treatment stuff. "
Small cell, during regression is not necessarily easier, personally I found ti frustrating. After the bees are regressed, if you buy all the claims, things do get easier. Which is why I finally said enough and bought bees that were already regressed. I wan't going to do it a second time.
"Now what has the Small Cell folks got to gain by telling you something that would cause you to lose your hives? No one is making money from you if you do it their way."
There are other benefits of the notroriety that have nothing to do with money. Money is not the only motivator of people.
"There are many small/natural cell folks all around the country that have kept bees with out the use of chemicals. (And some large cell beeks have done it with no chemicals) They have done it for years. "
Yep - in fact the most successful hive I have at the moment is large cell. The three small cell hives that were right next door are caput. Oh - and I have a TBH that is way out of control it is doing so well.
I use small cell, and have some regressed bees at another location that are doing well. Is it the small cell? I dunno, but it doesn't hurt to use the stuff so I figure what the hey. Of course I didn't have to spend my kids colledge tuition to regress thousands of colonies.
But the facts are these, science is not some dark conspiracy where the dollar is the diety, and there is no decent study done to date that support or refute the small cell claims. There are lods of annecdotes, largely by people who are not trained to make objective judgements.
Truth be told, many researchers wont touch it because A) they think it is not worthy of spending their time and funds on and B) there will never be a study designed that will satisfy the small cell devotees . . unless it fully supports all the contentions of some of the most vocal pproponants.
Dadant seels a fair bit of small cell thanks to the power of the internet, maybe they should spring for a study ot three.
Keith