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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
randy oliver <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 20 Dec 2015 10:06:27 -0800
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> So I actually sat through an Introduction to Bee Keeping course for 3
years before I started keeping bees.   Each year, I learned something new
which I had not gleaned from the class the prior year

I have a student who has proudly taken my Beginning Beekeeper course for 30
years without missing a course, for the same reason.  Obviously, I'm a very
poor instructor.  But as I learn more each year, I keep trying to improve
the course.

>A Master Beekeeper - Bees put food on my table., my kids through college
and pay the mortgage. If you're that good, you're a Master. If you still
have a day job, like I do, you're not there yet.

Well said Kim!  Of course it is not absolutely necessary to demonstrate
qualification by earning a living with bees, but the hard reality of
beekeeping as a business quickly separates those who have mastered the
craft and business from those who don't (I can tell you that from hard won
personal experience).  However, one can, by dint of understanding basic bee
husbandry, hard work, and being a sharp operator, run a financially
successful operation without understanding the basic biology of bees.

There are a number of commercial operators who have nothing but problems
year after year.  They may make a living, but I'd hardly consider them as
Masters, since they don't appear to be able to learn how to do things
better.  On the other hand, I've watched those with certificates of Master
Beekeeper, whom I wouldn't allow to touch one of my colonies with a
ten-foot pole (and who forced me to put on full gear simply to watch them
work (torment) a hive).

That said, one could well be deemed a Master without operating a commercial
venture.  But that one would need to in some way to have under his/her belt
the experience learned from doing many thousand of hive inspections.  This
is a key point--mastery can only come from experience.  One must inspect
many thousands of colonies in order to be able to pick out anomalies from
the norm.  One may get more useful observational experience in a single
day's work of making nucs in a commercial operation, that you'd get in 20
years of hobby beekeeping.

A Master can recognize signs of disease instantly from 20 feet away (that a
group of experienced trainees can't see when a comb is handed to them--I've
seen this any number of times).  A Master can make colony inspection look
like magic--effortlessly going through a hive without disturbing the bees,
and complete the job in seconds rather than minutes.  A Master would rarely
consider putting on gloves, as there would be no need for them.

A Master is always thinking of how the effects of conditions and actions
today will result in colony status and performance months later--a Master
is rarely surprised.  A Master can make flash decisions that if later
questioned can be supported by clear observations and logic.

Perhaps most importantly, a true Master must have the willingness and
ability to communicate and educate what he/she knows to others.  Thus, it
is only others who should be able to nominate someone as being a Master, in
recognition of what they've done outside of arbitrary qualifications or the
passing of tests.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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