# Stand on the shoulders of the giants



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I get interesting thoughts and comments from Beekeepers from this forum, emailed or PM'd to me.
Here is a thought I though all you at beesource would appreciate ;

"It is interesting over time though, one comes to a site like this to try gather information from those with more experience, it's the same concept we use in engineering problems, 'Stand on the shoulders of the giants who came ahead of us'."


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Amen!


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

funny thing about that Ian, I just posted on the sub thread just about that. I was looking up old post about pollen sub feeding, didn't really see a lot of names like I do now, It seem as though a lot are jumping on this pollen sub band wagon of late.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Best thing is there is a wide spectrum of thought shared, makes for interesting conversation. Though, we may not always agree, I'm impressed with the civility between each other. 
Cheers!!


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

I imagine that anyone who is successful at anything utilized the advice of the more experienced folks at some point. It certainly beats going about things in a "willy nillie" fashion. On the other side of the coin, thinking outside the box can be a good thing at the appropriate time.


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

I'll be one of the first to admit that I dig through all the information that I can find from "the giants" and look to the wisdom that they all share. It has tought me many great things and kept me from doing things ill advised. All in all tought me to become a better beekeeper. 

Throughout history it has been the ability of the human race to take information obtained in the past and build upon it to create and move forward.


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

I'm sure my bees would be dead already without the help of knowledgeable keepers who take time out of their busy lives to help educate rookies like me. Thank you


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

Yes, thanks. All of you have been very helpful. The advice has put me many years ahead of where I would be had I not come across it. :thumbsup:
Hind sight being 20-20 like it always is, sometimes I get carried away with my sarcasm and don't realize it until after the fact. Please overlook this character flaw. Perhaps the thread can be revived.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Well I guess if you all are standing on those that came before, that explains why we feel so down....

It is always interesting to note the different perspectives that develop with time.

Roland Diehnelt
5th gen commercial
Linden Apiary, est 1852


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Lol it's all good talon!
God knows I'm standing on the shoulders of many.
Just thought this was an interesting comment.
In fact I have been getting many emails about the quote posted! 

Surprised how many visit the site without subscribing


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

Ian said:


> Surprised how many visit the site without subscribing


Lol...they may be trying to avoid putting their foot in their mouths....


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

oops, wrong thread


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Speaking of Giants, I am reading ole LL Langstroths Honeybee and the hive and it is amazing how much of it he had right 160 years ago. Not that I don't like standing on Rolands shoulders too.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

To put the original quote into full context, the way we use it in my engineering line of business. If you want to reach a lofty goal, it's easier to reach if you can stand on the shoulders of a giant. The implication is, dont re-invent wheels from scratch on each product cycle, instead, take something that's 'very close' to what you want, then modify / improve to reach your final goal. Incremental work is far more efficient than starting from scratch on each development cycle.

So just as an example of what is meant, I'll post yet another of those charts I have, from data collected. Red line is ambient temperature outside, blue line is the temperature in an unheated, poorly insulated garage. So the blue line is essentially the red one, with 2 or 3 days of damping applied by nature.



So, what we have here, is a picture that only an engineer can love, but, it contains a LOT of information, if one knows what one is looking for. To understand what I'm looking for, we must look at another industry, the folks doing indoor horticulture. The greenhouse industry controls plant growth rate by using the growing degree as a metric. They dont just monitor it, they control it. It's a well understood concept, that has been made into a profitable system, by building systems to apply controls. Control moisture, nutrients, and temperature, they can control plant growth, and with tomatoes as an example, get consistent results over time. I've had discussions of this at times with clients, by controlling the variables carefully, they can end up with consistent sized fruit, with a consistent texture, on a production schedule.

As beekeepers, we rely on the natural growth of plants, something that's out of our control, it's asking a bit much to control the weather. But, we can take the same concepts used in the greenhouses, turn them on their side, and apply to beekeeping. By keeping track of temperature, we can calculate where we are in the growing cycle at any time, and from that make somewhat educated predictions. So, when the question is asked, 'Do I need to feed the bees?', the longer term answers come from analysis presented in the sub thread, ie, yes I need to feed them starting in late February to achieve my goal of large populations for the early flow. But on the shorter time scales, we are trying to ask 'Do I need to feed my bees _today_?' The answer to that question comes from weather data. If we know where things stand today in the growing cycle, and we look at the short term weather forecast, we can start to make predictions about availability of natural forage on a much finer timeline granularity. And that allows us to answer an even more detailed question. 'Do I need to feed my bees _today_, and if so, _how much_. Once we can answer this final question, we are homing directly into the bottom line.

The point of it all is, as a beekeeper, I dont have to start from scratch to figure out these kind of things at all, there are others who have blazed this trail ahead, invested heavily into the research, and already understand how to measure, quantify, and predict plant growth. All I have to do, is understand what they have learned, then figure out a new way to apply it. It's just an incremental change on the application of the knowledge we can gain by simply 'looking it up', and for that, google is your friend.

But another thing we've learned over time, it's sometimes very interesting the details we can discover, by simply comparing and cross referencing data sets. Last spring, I was curious, and started cross referencing the temperature and weight data sets. What I discovered for this colony, was an interesting data point. This colony sits in full sun pretty much all day. During the cold part of the spring, it was like clockwork, watch the temperature sneak up, and when it hit's 6.8C, the weight starts to drop, and over a period of 20 minutes or so, goes down by just about a pound. The foragers were headed out. With a fair degree of certainty I can say, this colony will NOT fly when the temps are at 6.5C, and they will start leaving at 6.8. To me, that's an interesting curiosity, and I have no real application for the number. I have posted it before, and, I'm pretty sure that the folks with a large chunk of bees parked in a shed for the winter, find that number more than just a little bit interesting. I'm the first to admit, it's a sample of one, so not necessarily applicable across the board, but, it's a hard measurement, not a guess of any type. To quote a famous rocket scientist, 'One engineering test result, is worth more than a thousand expert opinions'. I am not an expert, and my number is not an expert opinion, it's a test result, hard data measured in the real world.

And this whole ramble goes on about what I'm trying to do with respect to our bees as we start to scale up here in our new home. I'm on a quest to figure out ways and means of getting hard data points, we can measure, that will help us better manage the bees, to improve the bottom line. I'm in a rather unique position in that I have LOTS of technology kicking around, leftovers from projects we have done over the years for various clients, so I can throw tremendous amounts of technology at the questions, without busting the bank in the process. It's already here, sitting around gathering dust in many cases. For the summer coming up, I'm going to add a few more gadgets that I dont have kicking around, because I think they can help flesh out the whole picture, one of which will be a soil moisture sensor of some type. Again, widely used in the horticulture and agriculture industries, not any kind of new rocket science, just a different application of stuff that's already out there.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

"One engineer test result is worth 1000 expert opinions"

I love it!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Grozzie2 you state the question every beekeeper should be asking before any beekeeping application;
"Do I need to do ____."
To answer that question they need to be answering "what is currently happening in my hives, and what do I want to be happening in my hives?"

These questions are what seperates all beekeepers. It should be here right at the starting question of managing that hive where your entire beekeeping philosophy falls into place. 
And Beekeepers who don't answer that question, I call rookies lol


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Ian said:


> "One engineer test result is worth 1000 expert opinions"
> 
> I love it!


What? You trying to start another argument about engineers who are beekeepers?


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

grozzie2 said:


> 'One engineering test result, is worth more than a thousand expert opinions'.


Unfortunately for high percentage of people 'One expert opinion is worth more than a thousand test results'. Very frustrating if you place a high value on empirical evidence.

It's standing on the shoulders of giants not necessarily emulating the giants. I just read Steve Taber's "Breeding Super Bees"; lots of great stuff but I am surprised how far beekeeping and queen rearing has come since the mid 80's.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Two beekeepers come to mind with me. One, a Randy Oliver. Second is a local guy I hold in great esteem.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

sqkcrk said:


> What? You trying to start another argument about engineers who are beekeepers?


You need to appreciate I was an Ag graduate. It's all in good taste, right Grozzie2? Lol


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## JodieToadie (Dec 26, 2013)

One thing that stuns me is how much data from the '70's and 80's is not on the internet of things. I was reading 'The Hive and The Honeybee' and it references many studies and the data is not even available. How can I stand on the shoulders of giants when the data is missing or unavailable? If anyone can point me to where I can find the "Annual Report, Apiary Branch, Cloverdale Office. (1976, 1978, and 1981). BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Surrey, BC' please let me know. There is a ton of data missing to the average beekeeper. Doug McCutcheon and other giants of the industry had research done and now I cannot find it.


Allen Martens said:


> Unfortunately for high percentage of people 'One expert opinion is worth more than a thousand test results'. Very frustrating if you place a high value on empirical evidence.
> 
> It's standing on the shoulders of giants not necessarily emulating the giants. I just read Steve Taber's "Breeding Super Bees"; lots of great stuff but I am surprised how far beekeeping and queen rearing has come since the mid 80's.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Old School info has to be found the Old School way. Dig it out of University Libraries, such as Cornell, and Bee Magazines, like ABJ and Bee Culture.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

or listen to your Grandfather as you grow up.

Crazy Roland


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Roland said:


> or listen to your Grandfather as you grow up.
> 
> Crazy Roland


Oh ya, if beekeepers have the opportunity of father Grandfather beekeeping experience to tap into... I'm envious. 
I often think to myself as I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on; if only I could tap into Dad like I do on the grain and cattle farm.

Someday I hope to be lucky enough to have someone come to me with "what the heck is happening" questions.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>One thing that stuns me is how much data from the '70's and 80's is not on the internet of things.

Part of the reason is that everything before 1923 is out of copyright. Everything between 1923 and 1978 MIGHT be out of copyright if they did not renew it. Everything from 1978 on probably won't be out of copyright in our lifetime (75 years or the life of the author plus 50 years). So people freely post things from 1923 back with not concerns. They have to do a search to find out if it expired for the ones from then until 1976. They can pretty much assume anything after that has not expired so you have to find the copyright owner and get their written permission. There is no simple way to find the copyright owner unless the author is still alive and you can find them.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

But there are online Libraries, aren't there? I haven't checked it out myself, but Cornell University has an archive of all sorts of Honeybee related literature.

Fall back? Ask Peter Loring Borst where to find what you are looking for.


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

sqkcrk said:


> But there are online Libraries, aren't there? I haven't checked it out myself, but Cornell University has an archive of all sorts of Honeybee related literature.


There are, and there are piles and piles of info in them. If one library doesn't have the info, they can borrow the online material from a library that does on an "interlibrary" loan. When I was in college, I didn't have to pay for the service (included in the tuition), but now I would have to pay for access to most of the databases.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

This is an answer I got from Peter Loring Borst.



The Hive and the Honey Bee Collection, at Cornell

http://bees.library.cornell.edu/b/bees/browse.html

Most of the key works have been scanned. But nothing in the past 75 years or so, as that is still under copyright.

There is also a gray area between recent publications which are released electronically and old stuff which has been scanned.



Actually, there several archives that I search, some of which are public and some of which are not.


Google books is not organized, but it has a lot of stuff, some not accessible due to copyright.

http://books.google.com

The internet archive has a lot besides books, all free and open access.

https://archive.org

Hathitrust is mostly historical books, I think. Some not accessible due to copyright.

http://www.hathitrust.org


You can pass this on to your friends. Also, if it is specific question I might be able to help. I am accessible!



Pete​










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Peter Loring Borst*
Friends*​ 






















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## missybee (Sep 6, 2014)

Here is a nice link to some on line posting of a bee keeper here in Maryland, 75 years or so keeping bees. 
http://www.pinkpages.chrisbacherconsulting.com/#Y2001

Interesting to read


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

Thanks Mark!


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## JodieToadie (Dec 26, 2013)

A good portion of the giants were government funded. So the studies and dissertations should not be under copyright but the data has not been accessed and put on the internet of things. I just wrote Simon Fraser University Archivist and the Ministry of Agriculture Provincial Apiculturist hopefully one will respond.


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