>The small scale beekeeper has all the time and free labor available and is
>reluctant to have any bee loss, probably because it is not a vocation but a
>very personal undertaking. So the issue is not the pejorative "beginner" 
>compared to experienced, but labor against leisure.

Lets not kid ourselves.  If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.  
The pros are pros and the non-pros are not pros.  "Beginner" is not a 
pejorative.  It is a description of  fact.  Anyone who does not open several 
hundred hives a year -- minimum -- is not really in the game.  IMO.

How many backyard or street hockey players could last one minute on the ice
in an NHL game?  How many can walk the high-wire or ski GS races?

Those comparisons are obvious, but for some reason small-time beekeepers 
want to think they are in the same league as longtime beekeeping pros.  A 
few might be, but most don't even know what they don't know.

There is no substitute for working through tens of thousands of hives.
A pro can work twenty hives and do a good job in the time it takes 
a typical backyard beekeeper to do a questionable job on one.

As for researchers, to give them credit, they are different sort of pro beekeeper.  
Their focus is different, but they know their bees, too, but their management
techniques and goals mostly do not apply in a commercial situation.

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

I can hear Bob laughing from here.

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