When Heraclitus wrote about nature, he obviously had other concepts than nowadays. But the constancy of change has been noted from many after him: also Darwin wrote “Nothing is more constant than change” to a friend and introduced the concept into modern biology. In a wider sense, it applies also for this site and BeeSafe.
Reading the papers for the news on this site, very often I would have liked to comment: on the further consequences, on implications not considered by the authors etc. That is how the idea for a blog was born and I am happy to introduce this change with the New Year.
This blog will comment on articles that are related to the area I work in: Bees in agriculture and pollinator ecology. In this field, different parties use scientific results for their purposes and may interpret them in different ways just to confirm own opinions. This does not help – not the people themselves, not the bees (or other pollinators) and even less the search for good solutions of existing problems.
I will try to give a differentiated view and rely on science. Scientists observe, collect data, evaluate and discuss them. The crucial words may be “evaluate and discuss”. Sometimes other scientists understand data in a different way. Or introduce a detail that changes everything, also established believes and favourite views. Because: Nothing is more constant than change.
On the other hand, from time to time I would like to share also the interesting and beautiful aspects of bees, floral ecology, pollination and all the little anecdotes of my now 20 years’ work with these insects. There may be good books to recommend, personal experiences to comment or new developments to communicate. Though a constant may have been my interest for bees, in all these years I never got bored. Studying them – honeybees, bumblebees, mining bees, mason bees and the many other species – is much more than observing little honey machines or mechanistic insects. They are fascinating. They showed me several times that nothing is more constant than change and surely changed my life. This blog intends to transmit this fascination and share it with you.
