The creation of the laboratory, however, under the direction of Professor Chauvin would help greatly change the activity in the years to come. The research at the station was to have far reaching affects, and the results can be consulted today in the literature. In the 1960s, as French agriculture underwent changes, a satellite laboratory was created near Avignon at Montfavet. These laboratories have also collaborated with others at INRA and elsewhere, including researchers at the INRA Lusignan station concentrating on leafcutter bees and now on Bombus rearing. The Annales and the BTA have a distinguished history of over thirty years of outreach to French and European beekeeping.
Solutions depend on communication between researchers and beekeepers.
Modern laboratory work more and more needs to be translated into the language of the non-specialist. That it simply is done and published is not enough. It will be do neither the research nor beekeeping community any good if there exists a separation between the researchers and those who ultimately will benefit from their work. When I visited the Bures site, however, I was told there is simply not enough funding to keep the facility going as it has in the past. This is part of INRA's challenge to respond to modern French society and world competition in agriculture.