I'll take that as a compliment but I'm not as machiavellian as you make me out to be. And I'm not an activist. Take the poll (however poorly crafted) on face value.
Well it was certainly not meant as an insult as one poster imagined. It was also not meant to be as devious as Machiavellian would imply. BUT..........clever individuals rarely ask questions without there being an underlying purpose for it. It is generally not just for the sake of conversation unless as some kind of stalling tactic while a thought process is going on in the background ( and you are quick, so the chance of it being that reason is very slim).
Given previous lines of questioning on here (again, not a negative comment) you may have somewhat given up asking direct questions about bees, as for the most part beekeepers do not give a straight answer to that, tending to overegg their bees welfare and performance, so other beekeepers do not think of them as poor beekeepers. They like to be seen as good at what they do, and to have excellent bees, and you probably spotted that very quickly. Any results of straw polls are thus likely to give a skewed answer. So, shift horses, and ask about another creature that lives in the hive environment and shares part of the same potentially contaminated food. Then you might get an answer less tainted by beekeeper pride.
Only flaw with this one is that the answers might be skewed the other way, with beekeepers understating the numbers of moths so making it MORE likely it could be interpreted as poisoning, compounded by asking the question at the time of year when it is least likely to see an actual moth. My answer to that question would not be the same in June as it is in December.
Sorry, been asked too many questions in the past by too many people with hidden aggendas, and it can make me a suspicious sort. Guess not everyone is a jounalist..................
I am very open and liberal with information and advice if sought. Sometimes it gets picked up and twisted (getting messages on e-mail even overnight about Stromness 'twisting my words and selectively misquoting me' out of some interview a while back .) and it puts a kind of mental filter in your mind about questions. Depending on the questioner and the context you tend to try to guess what the real question behind the simple front question actually is. Calling you a 'clever fox' meant that you are smart enough not to launch a frontal attack on a subject in the knowledge you are not going to get universally untainted answers anyway, so could adopt a more roundabout approach.
There is a lot more to finding the truth about this beekeeping mullarkey than just asking straight questions............
