For readers of Beesource following Stromnessbees outburst

[gavin]

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

[Stromnessbees]

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.

[Jon]

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.

[Rosie]

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

[Jon]

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.

[Neils]

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.

[Stromnessbees]

One more recommendation about trying to make this forum a fairer place:

Gavin, I think you have to decide whether you want to be main contributor or administrator.

It's not good if the administrator of a forum takes part in discussions as often as you do, especially as you have certain topics where your opinion is completely one-sided.

Please make up your mind.

Doris

[mbc]

One more recommendation about trying to make this forum a fairer place:

Gavin, I think you have to decide whether you want to be main contributor or administrator.

It's not good if the administrator of a forum takes part in discussions as often as you do, especially as you have certain topics where your opinion is completely one-sided.

Please make up your mind.

Doris

Wow there, lets hear everybody's side of things is my opinion. I dont think Gavin tries to steer threads in any undue way, and even if you dissagree with some of what he posts, the disscusions would lose something without the posts.

[gavin]

One more recommendation about trying to make this forum a fairer place:

Gavin, I think you have to decide whether you want to be main contributor or administrator.

It's not good if the administrator of a forum takes part in discussions as often as you do, especially as you have certain topics where your opinion is completely one-sided.

Please make up your mind.

Doris

That's unacceptable Doris. To claim one-sidedness you have to have a reasonably dispassionate view in the first place. I pride myself on broad views, open-mindedness and the ability to reassess the evidence. That is why I have stopped believing (as I once did) that bees were dying in large numbers in France due to pesticides, or that pesticides have much of a role in Amercian CCD.

This forum is a very fair place and is valued for being open-minded and tolerant. I also value the humour brought to the debate by some of the participants. If you don't understand that I'm sorry - but it is one of the great things about this forum. Its humour and its reputation for perceptive debate.

If you want unquestioning acceptance of propaganda, you'll have to go elsewhere.

[Johnthefarmer]

You lot have a hell of a stamina! Cheers.