I have to disagree with a view like this:

> Then in recent years we have 
> had the boom of new beekeepers
> all hell-bent on saving the bee. 

Our task is to try to NOT be what my wife succinctly describes as "old white
guys in John Deer tractor caps endlessly bickering over which is the best
smoker fuel".  We can choose to ignore and belittle the new beekeepers, and
let them fail, leaving only the stubborn to remain, or we can try and mentor
them, and steer them away from the hucksters with the "be a beekeeper in 4
easy lessons" classes for several hundred dollars a seat, and the charlatans
offering the promise of mystical magical methods to keep bees healthy and
varroa-free requiring little or no thought or effort, but yet sounding so
alluringly simple, reasonable, and ecological.  

Like it or not, beekeeping is becoming younger, more female, and
darker-skinned. This is a good thing, as our own traditional efforts have
done nothing but create the impression among most "reasonable people" that
one would rather have a child molester in the neighborhood than a beekeeper.
As an example, look at this very recent example:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389155/And-thought-shaving-stung-Ma
n-battle-cultivate-biggest-beard-BEES.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/lb2qv2b

Great fun was had by all, but letting the press in to take photos?  They
didn't think that through very far, did they?   I noticed that Tom Seeley
gave a bee-lining workshop at EAS this year in PA.  Why didn't THAT get some
press coverage?  Just as quaint, lots more fun, and nowhere near as
scary-looking.  I've had 1st-graders lining bees.

> I have often asked whether they 
> thought that it would be helpful 
> if I decided to keep cows and 
> sheep (with no knowledge of either) 
> if we were in the middle of a foot & 
> mouth outbreak.

This is an elitist view of an avocation with very low (almost no) barriers
to entry, and factors for "success" that are often no more than good weather
and isolation and/or luck. 

Unlike the case of cows and sheep husbandry, there are no chances of a new
beekeeper starting an epidemic, and little chance of them making matters any
worse with minimal coaching. If one wants to be a cynic, they provide one
with an assurance of full swarm traps every spring, if nothing else.  But we
elder statesmen should start acting more statesman-like, and try to keep
from putting our own hooves in our own mouths with phrases like "feedlot
beekeeping", and suggesting to the press spokesmen like Jim Doan, who have
driven their operations into a ditch, and are all too willing to bitterly
rationalize their failure as unavoidable.

Best of all, with more beekeepers, and more hives OUTSIDE the
rough-and-tumble of migratory agricultural pollination work, we will have
more people who will be essentially keeping bees as urban/suburban pets.
Imagine the amount of research and support we'd get if bees became only 10%
as popular as cats and dogs.  Imagine the outrage when new beekeepers come
to grips with the fact that we still do not have an effective and reliable
easy-to-use varroa control after all these years, and that they are likely
to lose a significant percentage of their (two!) hives every year.  Doors
will be angrily banged upon at local offices of elected officials.
Pitchforks will be sharpened.  Blunt instruments will be sanded down.
Torches will be lit.

Remember the 2007 pet food recalls over melamine?  Remember the press
coverage?  Remember the quick action by regulators? Now, imagine the same
people in similar numbers being angry about the deaths of their beehives,
rather than their dogs.  I made this exact point back in 2007 after the Fla
and Beltsville CCD meetings, but my line about the National Guard being
mobilized if similar losses were experienced by dairymen was the only one
that got repeated. 

> Others on our committee just want to increase member numbers no matter
what.

"More members" is not such a bad thing, as with more members, they will have
more members who vote in numerous constituencies, and presumably can
better-influence elected officials to better-fund legit research, and
perhaps even to (gasp!) address the actual root of the bees' problems,
unregulated world trade without effective biosecurity.  If not for some
education, new beekeepers would firmly believe the scare-monger
fund-raisers, and blame the problems of bees solely on systemic pesticides,
rather than on invasive exotic diseases, pathogens, and pests.

Many new beekeepers look upon an organized group as entirely optional, as
the current generation has been endowed with self-assurance gained from an
"all participants get trophies" childhood, and nothing but positive
reinforcement from all sides, all the way through college.  Many approach us
only after killing their first hive of bees, only then realizing that they
needed to learn something.

I did quite a bit of thinking about "new beekeepers", which is why I started
teaching the free (nearly) year-round course in NYC with the help of the
Parks Dept. What caused the sudden popularity of beekeeping was prompted
more by the "Nature" program "Silence Of The Bees" in 2007 than by any other
single factor.  Beekeeping is also accessible to nearly anyone, as proven by
thousands of preteen 4H student members in the USA every year.  It can seem
deceptively simple, at least for the first summer.

I joke that in the 1970s, I did what I could to help save the whales, but
having only one bathtub limited me to saving only one whale.
But with bees, anyone with as little as a 3-foot-square space on a roof can
save an entire hive with their own two hands.  Beats the heck out of
composting kitchen scraps or sorting eleventy-seven different types of
plastic for recycling, don't it?  Plus, there's HONEY!

Bees are the current "Charismatic Megafauna" - the hood ornament on the
environmental movement as a whole.  If you go back, you can see that all the
prior animals were impossible for the average person to keep as pets, and
bees are the first that are not just possible to keep, but practical.  Note
the overwhelming power of general-release PG and G-rated cinema in the list
below:

1942:  "Bambi" - the forest fire scene ( led to Smokey the Bear)
1966:  "Born Free" - A Movie About Elsa the Lioness
1977:  "Save the Whales" A T-shirt created a movement, rather than the other
way around
1987:  The First Pandas arrive at San Diego Zoo
1990:  Canadian Baby Harp Seals With Da-Glo Orange paint spots on their
backs *
1993:  "Free Willy" Movie (Whales are Back!)
2005:  "March Of the Penguins" Movie
2007:  "Silence Of The Bees" - Nature (PBS) Program
2013:  "More Than Honey" A Swiss Documentary **


*  I volunteered with Greenpeace back then, and I came up with a poster and
tee-shirt with a photo of such a baby harp seal saying "Greenpeace - We
Invented the Tamper-Proof Seal".  Couldn't make 'em fast enough.

** You should see this if you have not, it is filmed by true craftsmen in
lush 1080p HD using high-speed cameras for slo-mo though lenses used in
orthoscopic surgery so as to get "into the hive".  It is also very
dogma-free, and not even a little bit accusatory.   The Swiss beekeeper in
the mountains and the US beekeeper in the almonds are both equally shown as
victims of forces beyond their comprehension, and also as equal victims of
their own hubris.  It also shows beekeepers working hives without gloves or
(gasp!) even veils in a few cases.

Yes, the fascination with bees may well die down.  So build that local
constituency while you can, even if they may not stand up to your own
erudite standards for beekeeping skill.  There have been tens of thousands
of lousy beekeepers every year since the 1900s, and this is no time to
presume to "raise the bar" on someone with no fewer skills than you had when
you started out.  

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