> My observation is that small-scale beekeepers appear to be hard wired to
 make beekeeping as complicated, expensive, and difficult as possible : )

>Those of us in the "old timer" category if we look back probably started with methods we learned in the beginning either from a mentor or class or books or all combined. With experience we tried other methods and if they solved a problem we adopted them and if not abandoned them. With growing colony numbers and a weaker back, not to mention mind, we try to make the craft easier, more profitable, and maybe allow some time for something other than bees, often with the encouragement from a spouse in the form of a frying pan to the side of the head.

>Beekeeper knowledge, I believe, follows a predictable bell curve. In its simplest form, we all start knowing nothing about bees. After about 3 to 5 years if we stick with it and try to learn we know about all there is to know about bees. As an old friend used to say "in beekeeping its what you learn after you know it all that makes the difference". As the decades role we learn that a lot of what we knew just ain't so and start knowing less about bees. In our dotage we are back to the baseline and have no absolute knowledge about bees.

My comments below....
Sounds like the "bell curve of bee knowledge" perfectly explains why newer beekeepers will try newer ideas - we haven't been through the winnowing process to be left with what works.  And we don't have the lessons from the school of hard knocks to realize something new might not work at all!

And as so many have added to the QE thread, there are many ways to run bees that work.  Please keep sharing - especially the flops, if any!  it's very informative to see the range of beekeeping systems.  

I'm a sci fi fan, and in our time we have access to lifetimes of bee expertise encapsulated in a book (or a web post).  There are so many ways to be a successful beekeeper, and we have access to so many variations of success like never before.  I've read works on horizontal hives - which as many have pointed out, have their pluses and minuses - and now I've read Dadant's treatise on using 1 Dadant deep - and I'm hooked.  That's next year's project!  

Part of why I am sharing this perspective is that experienced beekeepers internalize deep truths about bee behavior.  Any beekeeping system has to work within those truths.  Of course, deep convictions don't have to be truths - such as the conviction that bees only move up when in a winter cluster.  

And the current how-to-beekeep books only present one way to run bees, either 2 langstroth deeps, or a horizontal hive, which misses the chance to reveal deeper bee truths by showing more than one system works- by working within the "bee rules".  And this is a real problem for first year beekeepers without a mentor - they read "only a well stocked 2 deep hive, weighing 150 lbs, can survive winter", then give up when their hive is not at that point.  

One thought - for those selling bees, more of a habit of providing mentor lists for new beekeepers - or having mentors on the payroll who can be hired by the new customers.  And bee clubs need to prioritize mentoring.  It's not easy, it takes real commitment to set aside egos and focus on a mission like new beekeepers' needs, but I have hope.  

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