a randy oliver snip followed by > my comments... 
My observation is that small-scale beekeepers appear to be hard wired to
make beekeeping as complicated, expensive, and difficult as possible : )

>I promote myself as a simple beekeeper.  Basically this means I do not try to make keeping bees any harder than it has always been and imho the convolution of an almost infinite number of variable would require a genius and a large computer to totally figure things out.  This definitely does NOT mean I am a totally hands off/bee haver style beekeeper.

>As to Randy's observation I suspect he is absolutely correct although I suspect the driving mechanism is about ego more than how folks are wired.  Personally I think it would be in everyone's interest to first teach the fundamentals of beekeeping and to be quite up front I often see this as a problem even with the bright young folks who come to the Texas A&M bee lab.  This limited view with limited experience often means experiments become more expensive and variable are tossed in after the fact because the students were not properly coached in certain basics. The problem has now (based certainly on limited observation of data points by me) bled into commercial beekeeping world where all the new folks taking up beekeeping as a profession have either missed some basic lessons in keeping bees or had someone with a short beekeeping resume teach them the ropes < at this location I often suspect the latter as cause number 1.  Basically the natural world abhors a vacuum so when there is no one with credentials or experience to teach the young generation it falls on the shoulder of those that are not qualified to do so.

>IMHO if there is any long term problem that WE should all put our heads together to resolve that would positively promote the long term success of the bee industry this is it! 

Gene in Central Texas 

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