I had named my entry "Fred Dyer's Bees" based on the news story but as you will see from Fred's response below, the research was not all his own -- he was merely a spokesperson and never made claims of originating the work.

Anyway you can see he does indeed have a sense of humor.

I think this e-mail dialogue should be added to the song on the web site as clarification. A disclaimer on these pages to the effect that song entries are based on imaginative constructions that are not intended in any way to reflect on the characters or experiences of actual persons might be a good idfea in general though!

Here's Fred's answer:

From: "Fred C. Dyer"
Subject: Re: Fred Dyer's Bees

Dear Amos:

Please rest assured that I am by no means offended by your use of my name in a song. Quite the contrary, I got a kick out of it. It is almost as good as the time (in 1994) that my research was used as the basis of a joke on the Weekend Update segment of Saturday Night Live. I'm just happy you're not some wacko stalker digging up info on me. One striking thing about your lyrics is that you used two women's names, Amanda and Nancy, which if fact are names of women who have worked as my undergraduate research assistants in the past. Discovering this would have required considerable detective work beyond what was described on NPR, which did lead me to wonder what else you knew about me!

I do have to correct you on one important thing--the research on radar tagged bees that was featured in the NPR piece was not mine, but that of a former student, Elizabeth Capaldi, who did the work after she left for another research position. I was interviewed for the piece, but I'm pretty sure I didn't give the impression that I was the one who had done it. But I guess some poetic liscence is allowed in the realm of folk music.

Thanks for sending me the link to the thread with all the other contributions. I enjoyed it a lot.

Fred

to which I replied:

Fred:

Thanks so much for a wonderful reply. I am delighted you enjoyed the song, and the links on the Mudcat thread about it.

As regards the names of Nancy and Amanda, I can only attribute it to psychic bleed-through from the Akashic records, as I had no information of a normal sort that these names were part of your actual cadre!! A charming coincidence, anyway. After all they are not terribly uncommon names, and I used them as much for rhyme as from inspiration. I have not pursued any information about you other than the somewhat garbled version of events in the original relay from the NPR article.

Please accept and pass on my assurances to Elizabeth that I stand wholly corrected as regards her original work, and hope no offense was taken, as none was meant, from my inaccuracy.

Oh, and if you ever want to see a bunch of wildly inventive characters come up with funny stanzas about a research project, just let me know and we'll unleash a Song Challenege about it!!

Very best regards,

Amos