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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> I find this empowering. To make sure I am taking this as intended,  
> you feel that bees can be, or are, the canary in the mine of modern  
> life with chemicals?

Yes, that's it.  

Human beings have a high degree of resistance to toxins.  Many creatures do 
not and honeybees have very, very little.

One year we bought our bulk wheat from a feedmill where the milner had his 
hopper full of feed he was about to use in making horse feed.  Many people we 
knew recoiled and remonstrated at the thought of making bread with wheat 
intended for horses.  But, as we pointed out, the concern should be just the 
opposite.  People can "tolerate" the fungicides, pesticides, and all manner 
of 
adulterations done to wheat to store it and transport it, but those 
adulterations 
would kill a horse.  Wheat that goes into horse feed must be much cleaner 
than 
wheat that goes into human food.

Or as one disparaging friend used to say ought to be the USDA's motto, "Why 
do we put that in your food?  Because you can take it!"   </HTML>