a Janet L. snip followed by > my comment... 
Innovation is great, but it must be coupled with good critical thinking skills and fair evaluation. We need innovation (mites, small hive beetles, agri-sprays, degrading forage base, bee health issues). But we need a base of good standard practice suited to our locale as well.

>First off I see much of the same thing here but I think experience is the critical missing ingredient.  We have two bee clubs close that I attend and both have a large group of young folks as apprentice (my wife developed the apprentice program for both clubs).  Most of the mentors for these are very short on experience and I do wonder if the young folks are getting good advice from their mentors?  Certainly (my observation) is some of these young folks don't need much coaching since that take to beekeeping like a young ducks to water.

>As far as my own approach (I am basically treatment free but did not take that on as religion) I think there are lots of right ways and wrong ways to keep bees but I would never personally argue with success.  As far as the new folks coming to beekeeping I encourage folks to test for mites, have some treatment that does not disagree with their ethical compass and then to test again....test before and after is really the only way anyone knows if a treatment does or does not work.

>imho lots of innovation is not innovation at all but simply a failure to research what has been done before and in many cases an idea that has already been tried and already failed.

Gene in Central Texas 

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