Hello Allen & All,
Allen and I have been friends for years and I am sure Allen's comments were
not to offend but to give his opinion. My opinion is similar and I wish not
to offend.

Lets compare (honestly now) what each person has done today.
I have returned from working a yard of 65 hives. We checked for brood &
disease (not varroa) and stacked deadouts for a pickup tomorrow and marked
hives needing split the end of next week. I made notes . reduced 4 into
singles with reduced entrances and fed all hives. 2 hours time in the yard.

knowing what you are looking at is the  key part to speed in the bee yard.

My help breaks the boxes and pulls frames for the most part but I make all
decisions myself. I don't need a book in my hand to know what problem I am
looking at. You name the disease or problem and I have observed before.  I
am heading back to yards to the north and then south tomorrow.

quite a bit  of my experience comes from troubleshooting other beekeepers
operations.

I am sure there are others on the list which stay busy working bees. I loved
the stained overalls in the picture in Randy Oliver's ABJ article.

>As for "Master Beekeepers", I doubt most pros would hire one.  Sorry.

I wouldn't and for the same reason H. Bell would not. We both train our help
to work the hives the way we want done. Takes a couple seasons for help to
adjust.

I would not be able to keep help if the work was not always changing. I
oversee the first checks as not the place to make a mistake and overlook a
potential problem.

>I can hear Bob laughing from here.

I am not laughing. I never met a beekeeper I did not like but I have met
quite a few I felt we were not on the same page. We had a master beekeeper
( Marion Ellias class) bring us deadouts to install bees. I could smell the
foulbrood before even looking at his frames. Pictures in books and the real
thing is different.

Each commercial operation has a head beekeeper and you can actually run a
team of untrained beekeepers *if* those beekeepers can follow orders.

My help is back from lunch. need to head out.\

Will a couple of you commercial beekeepers help explain what Allen & I are
talking about ?

I refer to Allen's website many times during the year. Was at his site
looking at "walk away splits" last night. Allen has seen every bit as much
commercial beekeeping as I have. Mine is unique in my opinion because of the
many different areas I have worked bees in.

bob

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