Disputed Report on "Small Cell Test" In Norway (Beeculture 09/05)

[Jim Fischer]

The following was published in Malcolm Sanford's
"Apis" e-mail newsletter, to which one can subscribe
here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Apis_Newsletter/

The idea that smaller cell size is better for bee
health, including Varroa tolerance has been
around a while. Last month's Bee Culture and a
recent issue of The Beekeepers Quarterly featured
an article by Hans-Otto Johnsen that appeared to
reinforce this notion...

Inquiries to Norway, however, resulted in the following message:

From: "Stine Helland" <stine.helland@bluezone.no>
To: "Malcolm T. Sanford" <beeactor@earthlink.net>,
Subject: Re: Small Cell Study
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 11:06:51 +0200
Illegal publication of test results!

About the articles: Johnsen, H. O., 2005. Commercial Beekeeping In
Norway. BeeCulture, September 2005, page 37-40. and the same article
published in The Beekeepers Quarterly, Number 80. Spring 2005.

A large amount of this article describes results from a test of
different cell sizes in beehives, accomplished in Norway in the
period 2002-2004. This is a test that the Norwegian Beekeepers
Association has started and are responsible for, a fact that Johnsen
neglected in his article. The Norwegian Beekeepers Association owns
both the test and the exclusive rights to publish any of the results.

Hans Otto Johnsen has had knowledge to some of the preliminary
results, because he has been one of the people doing the practical
work with this project. He has also been fully aware of the
Norwegian Beekeepers Associations ownership to the results. The
trust he has been shown, he has used against us, publishing parts of
the results in his articles in Bee Culture and The Beekeepers
Quarterly. It should be stressed that the total results from the
test so far appears to have a rather different conclusion than
Johnsen's.

It is important for the Norwegian Beekeepers Association to point
out that the test is not finished, that the results in the mentioned
articles is taken out of a larger context, and that Johnsen has
published some of the preliminary results without the approval of
the Norwegian Beekeepers Association.

As you see, we did not know of the article before you gave us a
hint, and we are very thankful of that. If there are more people
who need to know about these facts, please do not hesitate to inform
them. The Norwegian Beekeepers organisation will send the same
information to the actual magazines.

Best wishes, Stine Helland."

I sure hope that Hans-Otto Johnsen's
"pre-publication" of the results will not prevent
publication of the actual results in a legitimate
peer-reviewed journal. (Understand that most
legit journals simply will not publish something
that has been published elsewhere before - they
want to be the sole "announcer" of the results.)

I'm not going to comment on the claim that
Mr. Johnsen's article was somehow "illegal", as
I know of no such criminal statute in Norway, or
for that matter, anywhere else.

[Sundance]

I look forward to reading the complete results.

I have never thought of ABJ as being a "true" journal. Having a BS in Biology/Enivironmental Science I have read my share of journals. And am grateful it is not a journal (dry reading folks).

I feel they should drop the "journal" from their title. I will continue to subscribe as I like the mag. But a journal it is not.

[BerkeyDavid]

Sundance

The article referred to in the email was in Bee Culture, not ABJ, although your comments may apply equally to BC.

Jim

Thanks for posting this email, I had missed it earlier. This is potentially very important I think.

Any idea when the Norwegian Beekeepers Assoc. will be in a position to publish the complete results?

Given the circulation of BC, I would think they should respond to BC directly asap and get their data published, even if incomplete.

[Jim Fischer]

> Given the circulation of BC, I would think they
> should respond to BC directly asap and get their
> data published, even if incomplete.

All involved in Norway, USA, and UK are working
on a consensus about what should be done.
Bottom line, the results aren't in yet, so there
will be a lag between the "preliminary and
partial" results published "without approval"
and the publication of the full and final
results.

There is little or no motivation to hurry up
and publish a "rebuttal", as there is no need
to "refute" something that was published by
a single "loose cannon" in the "popular press".

If he had somehow gotten something published in
a peer-reviewed journal, and thereby misrepresented
the preliminary and partial results as "Science
with a capital 's'", then there would be Hell to pay.

The sad part is that the final work will be
forced to compete for attention with the
unauthorized publication unless the final work
goes out of its way to "trash" the unauthorized
publication.

[BerkeyDavid]

Jim

Is there a refereed (peer reviewed) bee journal?

[drobbins]

this is interesting
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-...&F=&S=&P=16922

Dave

[Jim Fischer]

> Is there a refereed (peer reviewed) bee journal?

Well, ABJ tries to pretend it is, but it
really is not. It serves as a repository
for papers that are hard to publish in the
real peer-reviewed journals, and it does not
look all that bad in one's CV, as it does
have the word "Journal" in the title.

Bee Culture openly refuses to publish anything
written in the format of a "scientific paper",
as it is the "New Yorker" of the beekeeping
world. They want good writing and actual
stories rather than turgid prose that one needs
to slog though with hip-waders.

The list of peer-reviewed journals that
publish papers about bees is very long,
but here's a neat narrow-focus citation
index of papers published on bees to
help you get started.

http://www.geocities.com/BeesInd/Bee...uthorindex.htm

With this, and inter-library loan, you
are in business, and can "keep up" with
whats going on.

WARNING - Reading actual Science on bees may
result in a complete inability to drink the
Kool-Aid on MANY of the approaches to beekeeping
discussed on the internet, and may even result
in one or more people mistaking you for me. [img]smile.gif[/img]