Searching for Beekeeping Information Electronically –
The Google Example
By
Malcolm T. Sanford
Few business phenomena in
recent months have matched the hype of the “Google IPO.”1 Google is one of the most often used
search engines/protocols on the World Wide Web.2 As a consequence it is looked at as an
eminently “marketable” product and a effective tool for advertising. So when it was announced that Google, which
began in a garage by students, but has now become a large corporation, would
sell stock through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) there was and continues to
be huge interest.
Google took the Internet by
storm using a specific searching protocol, which “consists of three distinct
parts, each of which is run on a distributed network of thousands of low-cost
computers and can therefore carry out fast parallel processing. Parallel processing is a method of
computation in which many calculations can be performed simultaneously,
significantly speeding up data processing.
·
Googlebot, a web crawler that finds and fetches web pages.
·
The indexer that
sorts every word on every page and stores the resulting index of words in a
huge database.
·
The query
processor, which compares your search query to the index and recommends the
documents that it considers most relevant.”3
Google has become so popular
that it is now a verb in the English language.
Thus, many understand the sentence, “I Googled
it.” In other words, I search for it
using the Google search engine/protocol.
There are many neat things about using Google besides the fact that its
continued use means it will eventually be in the dictionary and become eligible
as a Scrabble® word, although is not now according to the official dictionary
on the subject.4
More importantly, relevant and frequently used sites come up
first ensuring that one is generally directed to the most current and reliable
links. In addition, “sponsored” (paid
for by advertisers) links also are placed in a special side panel.
Googling is so popular that students at the
Fortunately, Google can be
used by anyone with an Internet connection and web browser. So any beekeeper can search for relevant
information quickly, conveniently and reliably.
Let’s look at an example. If I
enter the word “bekeeping” in the Google search box,
the sentence, “Did you mean: beekeeping”
appears. One is given the option of
selecting the correct spelling, which leads to the following: “Results 1 - 10 of about 229,000 for beekeeping [definition].
(0.29 seconds).” It literally boggles the mind that 229,000
pages can be found in 0.29 seconds.
However, the incorrect spelling also brings forth the following:
“Results 1 - 10 of about 64 for bekeeping. (0.45 seconds).” It appears to take a lot longer to search
using incorrect spelling. Sites
containing the word reveal that some need the services of a spelling check, and
as might be expected, the incorrect spelling has been used in some foreign
language sites.
Beekeeping is a broad term
and not so useful when one requires something more specific. Nevertheless, it is a good starting point for
those who might begin the apiculture craft and/or are first-time users of the
Google technology. Let’s say one would
like information on “beginning beekeeping.”
This narrows the field considerably: “Results 1 - 10 of about 13,900 for beginning
beekeeping.
(0.37 seconds).” Rising to the top of the list is “Beginning
Beekeeping for Kentuckians” by R.T. Bessin and L.H.
Townsend (ENT-41, Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, a 20-page booklet).5
Now suppose that
after reading the chapter on “Enemies of Bees,” one puts that into Google. The following is displayed: “Results 1 - 10 of about 71,000 for enemies
of
bees.
(0.40 seconds).” Again,
rising to the top of the list is a Kentucky Cooperative Extension 4-H fact
sheet on honey bee diseases.6
Narrowing the search further to one enemy described in the fact sheet,
“American foulbrood,” the following is displayed, “Results
1 - 10 of about 4,540 for American
foulbrood.
(0.21 seconds).” At the top of the list is the Beltsville
Agricultural Research Center’s (BARC) Bee Research Laboratory’s description of
the disease.7 Finally, if one
wants to return to any of the phrases mentioned above, Google conveniently
remembers what has been entered and it appears automatically when the first
letter is typed into the search box.
Google also
understands Boolean logic.8 In the most simple terms this means
that one can search using three “operators:” These are “and,” “or,” and
“not.” Thus searches can be
customized. Selecting “advanced search preferences”on the Google page, leads one to a bewildering
number of options provided by Boolean logic that cannot all be described here.
Returning to the
“sponsored links” found in Google mentioned above, several come up when
“beekeeping” is entered correctly.
Improbably, at the top of the generated list is
Some of the
better-known manufacturers and suppliers are listed as sponsored links as
well. But there are other possibilities
that would not be immediately suspected.
These include informal meetings of beekeepers. Over 160 beekeepers have signed up to meet
through the services of beekeeping.meetup.com.10 Also present is a link to the third
meeting of the Heartland Apiculture Society in
Beekeeping items
for sale are also found through a link to the largest electronic auction site
in the world, Ebay®.12. Like
Google, Ebay is one of the great successes of the
Internet revolution. Items listed
include books, extractors, hives (comb honey frames and supers), building
plans, t-shirts (CAUTION: BEE HANDLER – If you see me running, you should
follow), signs (honey for sale) and videos (Keith Delaplane’s
“A Year in the Life of an Apiary,” from the University of Georgia is being
auctioned at a reduced price).13
Google is simply
a “jumping off” place for those in search of information relevant to their
needs. Quickly one leaves this powerful
site and is off “surfing” the “information superhighway.” There are many delightful surprises along the
way. For example, the Beltsville Bee
Laboratory boasts its “Bee Bibliography.”14 If one enters “American foulbrood”
into this search box the following is returned: “Matching Record Count: 1920, Total
Retrieved: 25, Interpreted Query:
American foulbrood, Total Database
Records: 30772, Query Time: 12
seconds.” At the top of the list is
found:
“AUTHOR: Hitchcock, J. D.
ARTICLE TITLE: Comparative Susceptibility Of Larvae Of Different Stocks Of
Honey Bees To American Foulbrood When Reared By The Same Nurse Bees.
JOURNAL TITLE: In: Tenth Internatl. Cong. Ent., Proc. Montreal, Aug. 17-25, 1956. 4:1097-1103,
Tables, Fig., Refs
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1958
NOTES: Summary: In An Attempt To Determine If Different
Stocks Of Honey Bees (Apis mellifera
L.) Are More Resistant To American Foulbrood Than
Other Stocks Because Of Differences Not Only In The Behavior Of Adult Bees But
Possibly Also In The Physiological Resistance Of The Larvae Themselves, Larvae
Of Different Stocks Were Reared In Adjacent Combs Simultaneously By The Same
Nurse Bees. Larvae Were Individually Inoculated At The Same Susceptible Age.
Removal Of Disease By Adult Bees After Sealing Was Prevented By Rearing The
Sealed Brood In An Incubator. No Consistent Relationships Were Observed Between
Larvae Of Different Hybrid Stocks And Their Susceptibility To American
Foulbrood. The Percentage Of Diseased Brood Cells Within The Same Stock, Or
Even The Same Colony, Were Extremely Variable. Larvae Of Different Stocks
Frequently Showed Great Differences In Their Rate Of Development, But The Time
Of Sealing Was Not A Reliable Index Of Their Comparative Susceptibility Of
American Foulbrood. A Very Rapid Decrease In Susceptibility Occurred Between
The Larval Ages Of 18 And 30 Hours. This Probably Explains The Wide Variations
In The Percentage Of Diseased Cells Reported. These Experiments Appear To
Substantiate Previous Literature Which Indicates That Colony Resistance To
American Foulbrood Is Associated With Adult Behavior In Removing Disease,
Rather Than With Physiological Resistance Of The Larvae.
KEYWORDS: American Foulbrood Breeding Disease Resistance AFB.”15
The above is only an
abstract. To see the full article one
still has to trek over to a library, at least for the time being.
The future of Google after
its IPO is unknown. There are certain to
be improvements, however, as computers become more powerful and reliable. We can easily predict that this will
translate into more customized powerful and reliable searches for information
as well.
References:
1.
Google Initial
Public Offering page, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.google-ipo.com/>
2.
Google search
page, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.google.com>
3. How Google Works page, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html>
4.
Scrabble home
page, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.scrabble.com/>
5.
Bessin,
R.T. and L.H. Townsent, Beginning Beekeeping for Kentuckians, (ENT-41, Kentucky Cooperative
Extension Service), accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/ent/ent41/ent41.pdf>
6. Kentucky Cooperative Extension 4-H fact sheet on honey
bee diseases, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/ythfacts/4h/beekeep/enemofb.htm>
7.
Beltsville
Bee Laboratory page, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.barc.usda.gov/psi/brl/bd-amfb.htm>
8.
A
primer in boolean logic,
9.
Sangdi, a Chinese honey company page, accessed June 16,
2004, <http://www.sangdi.com/html/english.htm>
10. Beekeeping Meetup
page, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://beekeeping.meetup.com/?a=reprise>
11.
Third
Annual Hearland Bee Meeting, accessed June 16, 2004,
<http://www.heartlandbees.com/>
12.
Ebay home
page, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://www.ebay.com>
13.
14.
Beltsville
Bee Bibliography, accessed June 16, 2004, <http://alembic.nal.usda.gov:8088/>
15.
Search results
for American foulbrood, Beltsville Bee Bibliograpy,
accessed June 16, 2004, <http://alembic.nal.usda.gov:8088/12598.htm>