> Those with few colonies probably have the time 
> to post throughout the year, whereas those with much
> work to do will probably go quiet from time to time.

I'll go further - there is a direct inverse relationship between number of
online "posts" and actual beekeeping work done.

his creates a dichotomy - a tiny number of extremely prolific posters
dominate the beekeeper-specific "social media" with their copious free time,
and the agendas they tend to promote are best described as "divergent".
(Bee-L has sufficient subscribers who, hearing a whale of a tale, tend to
request a citation or a cetacean.)

This makes life harder for those of us who teach beekeeping, as we find many
noivces arriving with preconceived misconceptions from the online forums
that are a true distraction to the rest of the class, as they combine the
near-religious fervor of a flat-earther with the selective hearing and
confirmation-bias research skills of a climate-change denier.

I find it more difficult to even read what appears on Bee-L, as I am both
forced to feed excessively due to warmer and longer Indian Summers each
year, and I am ramping up for the Christmas season, where we add beeswax
gift items (candles, lip balms, creams, cosmetics...) to the honey we sell
to gourmet/health food stores, and also endure the "Holiday Fairs" to
benefit local churches and other charitable institutions where I sell the
hard work of my bees and myself, and then give the money to the charitable
institution.  (Most are landlords to hives, so the bees must "pay the rent"
for their rooftops.)

Despite the term "Holiday Fair", it is no "Holiday", and it certainty does
not seem "Fair" to me.
 

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