>> we should not be taking honey that 
>> the bees might need for themselves. 

This is the reason why biodynamic practices dictate the harvesting of honey
in spring, after the first blooms have begun.  The beekeeper harvests only
what the bees have not used, and will not need.  But even this approach does
not assure overwinter survival in all scenarios.

>> And if they cannot produce enough 
>> to support themselves, then to 
>> supplement them with artificial feed is
>> to select for inferior bees."

This is a comment burns so brightly, I can only call it "Bush-lit".
The problem is that some recent winters have been far longer and colder than
expected, so no hive would have survived if it was not fed in early April,
when the weather was still bitterly cold, rather than being the real start
of the first significant blooms.  (And since when did we blame the bees for
the weather, and call them "inferior" simply because they and we both failed
to predict the future accurately?  That rationalization sounds to me like a
way to distance oneself from responsibility for the basic task in
beekeeping, i.e., to KEEP the bees, and to emotionally distance oneself from
losing a hive through one's own neglect.)

> ...able to continue his habit by telling others 
> how to manage their bees, which management 
> practices prevented him from going full time, 
> which (if his advice is taken) would also prevent 
> others from going full time (I would suspect), 
> which causes them to need more help...
> ...more speaking engagements...

While the above made me laugh hard enough to prompt my wife to come see the
cause, let's not make the error of naming/shaming any individuals as the
source of any of the "neglect posturing as enlightened beekeeping", lest we
insult someone by not mentioning the actual originator.  In this specific
case, Samuel Johnson said it best, 300 years ago - "Your manuscript is both
good and original; but that which is good is not original, and that which is
original is not good."

There are many ways to keep bees, and many more ways that result in one not
"keeping" any one hive of bees very long.  

There should be no shame in discovering that one's established habits "do
not scale" in beekeeping.  Some things don't scale up, and some things don't
scale down to hobbyist (or, as I call it now that I have far fewer hives:
"Artisanal" or "handcrafted" beekeeping). 

But the failure of "the beekeeping establishment" to develop a narrative to
explain what is truly best for bees in simple, clear, and consistent terms
created a vacuum, and of course the vacuum was promptly filled by the
charlatans and the good-intentioned, but self-deluded. 

The ones who are taken in by the purveyors of practices that are not guided
by observation are, for the most part, the ones who like the IDEA of keeping
bees, but are more than a little afraid of them.  The key phrases  to listen
for are "I never use smoke", and "I don't want to disturb the bees", and
best of all "I did not go down into the bottom box".  So, the mental
clickbait idea of "one weird trick" is exactly as attractive to these
uncritical minds as the clickbait articles titles one sees online on so many
content-aggregator sites.

The "one weird trick" is presented as something one must unilaterally do to
all hives at all times, and there are no preconditions, or observations that
might cause one to stop, or even hesitate.  That alone rings an alarm bell
in heads from which stingers have been often pulled, but the trick itself is
the dead giveaway.  The trick is invariably a way to AVOID simply opening
the hive, and inspecting the bees and their combs.  It gives the new,
younger beekeepers of the 21st century an excuse to feel ok about the fear
that they cannot seem to overcome or admit.

So, the answer is to make housecalls.  Or have a field day.  But get those
heads into beehives, and show them that full protective gear is not even a
requirement most of the time.  I sound more like a yoga instructor with
these newbees than anything else - they are all holding their breath, their
hands are shaking, and they are turning blue from lack of oxygen.  "Remember
to BREATHE" I have to say, over and over.  "The bees cannot sting through
that suit and that veil, so you can take your time, and move slowly and
carefully..."  yep, I'm also teaching them Tai chi.  They weren't even born
in the 7Os, and they've never been to Chinatown, let alone China, so it's
all new to them.

After a while of this, some of the newbees are much happier, as they have
mastered (or at least admitted to and accepted) their fear, and they can
then think about accepting the fact that they need to do more than just hope
that their bees survive.  Some find out that they don't like being in such
close proximity to bees after all, and they either sell their hives to
someone who does, or they quickly become a self-correcting problem.

The "flow" hive quickly became a good metaphor for all of these attempts to
revolutionize beekeeping by various forms of what Eric Mussen of UC Davis so
eloquently called "nuisance beekeeping".  It was very clear that it was an
attempt to collect money, not from actual beekeepers, but from those who
merely thought that they might want to keep bees, and want to be able to
keep bees the same way they have done everything - in a very light and
breezy manner, and without more than cursory effort, investment of time, or
thought.  It is yet something else to blog about (and this is another
problem that has arisen in the infectious spread of these bee-non-keeping
ideas) and they will spend more time blogging and talking about their
uniquely insightful and personal views on beekeeping than they will spend
actually keeping the bees!  This tends to spread bad information around more
broadly than the useful and accurate information.

Are these wannabe beekeepers worth the effort of a "housecall", when they
are likely to argue with you?  Some aren't.  Some turn out to be pretty
decent beekeepers with nothing more than a suggestion that they buy any of
the basic beginner texts that have been used for a decade, and start
attending some workshops.  That's another clue to identifying the syndrome,
many of these people have yet to purchase or read a single book on the
subject - they expected to learn beekeeping on Twitter, 140 characters at a
time!

But the snowflake children of the helicopter parents are accustomed to being
the center of attention, and used to being praised for even the most
pathetic approximation of "success", so it is no wonder that those who are
willing to pander to their desire for beekeeping to be somehow "made simple"
or "made easy" for the consumption of the Instagram users might both profit
and become oft-quoted.  But this would be a very poor living, if it is a
living at all, and like all cons, it depends on a constant stream of new
"easy marks" if it is to exist at all.

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