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Thread: For readers of Beesource following Stromnessbees outburst

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Default For readers of Beesource following Stromnessbees outburst

    http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...ekeeping-Forum

    Folks, we at SBAi don't quite know what to say. Some of us know Doris (Stromnessbees) personally and wish her no harm. However her accusation of regular posters here being 'shills' (paid propagandists) in favour of the pesticide industry is hurtful. We don't really think that people are likely to believe her, but her behaviour has been outrageous - first spamming SBAi with the accusations above and now repeating this on the biggest beekeeping forum globally.

    Last night she copied a defamatory post across 8 sub-fora here, now she is making the same accusations on Beesource. So, 24 hrs ago, I removed her duplicate posts and left one copy here:

    http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...cussions/page4 (post #36)

    The start of the argument was in this thread but yesterday I removed the off-thread discussion to the thread above:

    http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...11-2012/page12

    Nothing has been censored here and nothing ever has. Sometimes for the health of the forum I will move discussions to more appropriate areas as people generally come here for beekeeping discussion rather than to pick an argument.

    As for Doris? We wish her well and hope that she comes to her senses soon.

    Gavin

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    Banned Stromnessbees's Avatar
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    I just want to clarify that by using the term shill I was refering to a distinctive, coordinated way of driving a discussion, for whatever motives.

    I have no way of knowing if any persons involved were benefiting in a financial way from their activities and was not trying to imply that they did.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Doris. None of us were speaking off the forum that night.
    The lines you think are private communication are just jokes in the posts which went right over your head.
    I exchange e-mails with Gavin and Neil on a regular basis but we were not in any private off forum discussion that night. That's the truth. No coordination at all. last week I was in touch with neil about the possibility of sharing a hire car from Edinburgh to Stirling for the Scottish centenary event. No crime in that.
    Your crime is failing to understand Neil's sense of humour and mine. I guess you are not the only one with that problem.
    Go and reread the thread.

    Good job I have a think skin. Your paranoid chum borderbeeman posts all over the internet that I am really Julian Little, some guy who works for Bayer!
    I think these issues need to be debated in an informed way without name calling, paranoia or invoking a conspiracy every 5 minutes. If you believe strongly in something like you do, you need to get informed and make your case properly as opposed to throwing the toys out of the pram. I have spent a lot of time reading and assimilating papers to do with bees and pesticide risk and I suggest you do the same without cherrypicking bits which suit your preconceptions.

    And for the record Doris, As you well know, I work for a learning disability charity for a minimum wage, so posting all over the internet that I am a 'pro pesticide shill' whatever that may be exactly is not a very nice thing to do. But like I said, I have a thick skin. I was just surprised that you would do this.
    Last edited by Jon; 02-05-2012 at 01:08 PM.

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    All this reminds me of a run-in I once had with Borderbeeman. He accused me in the end of being a member of the BBKA exec because I dared to defend their policy of advising farmers on which of the insecticides were the least harmful to bees. The truth was that I was not even a member of the BBKA, let alone an executive. He didn't exactly call me a shill but he said I walked like a duck, talked like a duck and therefor must be a duck. He did not quite go as far as posting our "discussion" on other sites though. Doris, I'm afraid you have out-done the master.

    Rosie

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Did I see some ducks in that polytunnel ark of yours or were they undercover agents on a reconnaissance mission?
    The pygmy goat could well be a double agent.
    You have reminded me of that Duck scene which exists in the fertile mind of borderbeeman but not in Dr Strangelove.
    Possibly the greatest highlight of the old bbka forum. Just before he got BANNED for lunacy he posted the same message in about 20 subsections and he also copied over a tirade on to beekeeping forum which was lost on the majority as I don't post there.
    I guess it is a serious misdemeanour to point out the holes in an argument when it is a faith based argument.
    Nowt as odd as folk.
    Last edited by Jon; 02-05-2012 at 08:17 PM.

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    Well, as we're being up front and all.

    I've nothing to do with Agriculture or indeed beekeeping when it comes to making a living, I write software and design databases.

    The "misuse" of science and disingenuous debate, however is something I find fascinating and that I've followed with interest for a number of years, whether wrapping up creation in a pseudo-scientific wrapper as Intelligent Design or the media running with incomplete and inaccurate data such as with the MMR scare a few years ago in the case of science or shouting down objections to Afghanistan/Iraq wars with "why do you hate our troops?".

    The Anti-Bayer/big business campaign, which at it's heart I think that it is, campaign shares elements of all of the above neatly wrapped up as "save the bees"/Ban those nasty pesticides. Every other campaign desperate for support has tried it on, the anti-Phone mast brigade, the anti-Powerline lot. Pesticides lucked out, only a fool would fail to make the connection between an insecticide and a bee so it's gone full speed ahead in beekeeping circles and draws a few comments from time to time from the BumbleBee guys. But we're a tetchy lot and there's been all those shenanigans with the BBKA so we're particularly touchy around pesticides in particular.

    I'm a member of several other wildlife charities aside from beekeeping associations and it's interesting, even with others that are interested in Insects that this "debate" isn't even being had as far as I can see. So you can take my "why do you hate otters" as an attempt to move the goal posts, debate in bad faith or whatever but, in fact, it's something that I'm very interested in.

    That aside I think that this is a discussion that should be had, but when the Pro-Ban/Anti-Bayer campaigners want to continually attack anyone who doesn't agree with them or attempt to paint them as in the employ of Bayer then I don't think it does anyone any favours.

    There will come a point when someone in the media will ask the BBKA just how many colonies we're down to now and how many were lost last year, and the year before. Or question why colonies are being lost in Germany, but numbers are increasing in Spain. Somewhere there's bee paradise that is not only masking massive losses down to pesticides but allowing many countries to show large increases in kept colonies so even before you start looking at the "science" that's being bandied around something doesn't add up. If you want to argue that the raw data is flawed, that's fine by me too, but produce something that backs up that argument.

    When you then factor in the wider environmental impacts (Otters!) I think you have to question again, what is the actual benefit of banning neonicotinoids, Just in case? And, more importantly, what will replace them?

    Again, if you ask the pro-ban campaigners what happens when they succeed you get attacked, called pro-pesticide, an employee of Bayer or just a hater of bees. But it's an important question. Will the fields be tended by herds of aphid munching unicorns or will previous classes of pesticides that we know are both harmful to bees, fish, birds, mammals and probably everything else, come back into widespread use?

    It's all very well calling records showing bee poisonings as a result of pesticide spraying having dropped to near zero in recent years as "deceitful", but it's there, in black and white and in return we're supposed to accept "in quantities we can't detect" or the Harvard study as credible ammunition for banning neonicotinoids "just in case" and don't dare argue that or we'll try and trash you not only on this forum, but on others too? I've been called worse and been more directly threatened for daring to asking questions of the ban campaign so this little episode is more amusing than anything else.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    The Anti-Bayer/big business campaign, which at it's heart I think that it is, campaign shares elements of all of the above neatly wrapped up as "save the bees"/Ban those nasty pesticides.
    Neil I think that is absolutely true for a lot of them. I remember some guy taking on allcomers on the bbka forum about pesticides several years ago and he had never kept bees. His detractors obviously asked him why he was spending so much of his time on a beekeeping forum when he was not a beekeeper. About a year later he got himself a top bar hive and someone put a swarm in it for him which took the bad look off the situation but he never comments on it other than to mention it is still alive.
    The dead give away is posters who make hundreds of posts about pesticides but none or very few about bees and beekeeping. That cannot be said about Doris as I know she is a passionate beekeeper with a particular interest in the native bee, same as myself. Just a bad case of conspiracy fever. My bees are hardy and do well and if I had to rank challenges they face I would put varroa number one, Nosema at two and pesticides quite a way down the list. I base that on personal experience rather than internet petitions against Bayer or any of the rest of the misinformation posted. Look at the facts folks. UK colony numbers have tripled in 3 years. That is a success story rather than a crisis.

    [edit] removed some guy's forum nickname, he doesn't post here so I don't think it's fair to single him out, especially in this thread
    Last edited by Neils; 02-05-2012 at 09:44 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stromnessbees View Post
    I just want to clarify that by using the term shill I was refering to a distinctive, coordinated way of driving a discussion, for whatever motives.

    I have no way of knowing if any persons involved were benefiting in a financial way from their activities and was not trying to imply that they did.
    I'll also add that, for what it's worth there was no co-ordination, going on. We do talk outside this forum and we tend to agree on a lot of things, unusual in beekeeping circles I know.

    The discussion is there to be had from my point of view. If spamming this and other forums about what a git I am is the worst that I can expect then I'm doing better than elsewhere but I still don't think that it does much to drive the discussion. For the most part I enjoy your input to the forum. I don't agree with everything you say (obviously) and especially not around this subject, if you're going to cite the Harvard study seemingly because it appears to confirm what you want to believe while dismissing completely numbers you don't want to see or subjects you aren't interested in then I think you're out of luck.

    I raised Otters specifically because a) I'm interested in them and b) the Environment Agency specifically cited reduction in pesticides use as the primary cause for their return (with general reduction in pollution and improvement in habitat also cited as important). I left out the qualifier that the major blamed pesticides in question were banned in the 70's and ignored your, perfectly valid in some respects, points simply to use your own line of reasoning against you, i.e. if it doesn't fit what I want to hear then I'm going to discount it.
    Last edited by Neils; 02-05-2012 at 11:06 PM. Reason: Grammar tidy up.

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    Senior Member Adam's Avatar
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    Hmmm.
    Interesting.

    Doris, I just looked at your posts on the US site and didn't understand them until I read the whole thread on this site. I honestly think you have taken two and two and made a consiracy out of it. (And yes their sense of humour IS a bit strange!).

    I too have exchanged the odd private message with those accused and I have no doubt that they do not work for a pesticide company.
    I can only write as an Engineer and a bloke that keeps bees in Norfolk. My colonies are surrounded by farmland including OSR in some years (not this one). I have never had maize near me but plenty is grown in Norfolk. My colonies have been doing fine as have other colonies in Norfolk as far as I am aware. In fact I have too many colonies - they breed and grow very well. (Ask my Wife!).

    Some of the science is poor (giving 200 - 400x the dose is one example) and some studies in the past may have been sponsored by the pesticide manufacturers which would give cause to doubt them if we consider the tobacco companies were in public denial for years and years despite knowing that smoking kills. The Sterling University article is definitely concerning, as I recall Jon has pointed out.
    We don't seem to get a pesticide (neonic) problem here despite, I assume, the same pesticides being used throught Europe. If pesticides are the problem we would all love to know why; the differences in application, practices, weather, whatever in France to Spain to Austria to the UK. I WANT the scientists to find out.

    I am delighted that I am allowed to join in with the Scottish Forum as I'm 'slightly' out of foraging range; Doris, I have read your posts with interest over the time we've been members and hope that they continue.

    I hope I've put the message across as intended. Engineers are rubbish at this sort of thing; I work with 35 of them and they drive me crackers!
    Last edited by Adam; 03-05-2012 at 04:46 PM. Reason: can't string a sentence together

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    Oi Adam! Who have you been conspiring with to besmirch us Engineers? Is Trog with his gippy tum coming on next to land the next blow?

    Rosie

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