Trish, just as an aside, we have tried to have club mentor lists but have encountered two issues. One, there is a propensity for dogmatic beekeepers, and treatment free advocates have been perhaps over-represented in this category, to buttonhole the newbees and witness a particular faith that may not be in the best interests of new beekeepers or their bees. Better to offer no mentors than bad ones.

Second, and this may be an artifact of the media attention that spawned many to want to help save the bees via beekeeping, a lot of our older beekeepers are frustrated by dealing with the same issues year after year with new beekeepers who are long on theory, short on practice, and also short on trusting a wise old beekeeper. 

I have only been in beekeeping 10 years and only recently reached a point of competence where I felt I could offer material assistance to beekeepers in trouble, nonetheless I enjoy the problem solving and helper duty, so do a lot of the Help Needed calls for our club. I run into a large number of new beekeepers who disagree with my advice, which is fair and I am fine with that...even when it involves not treating a heavy mite load, or not feeding a starving colony.

What I find much harder to deal with is the number who go on to criticize my practice. I have been called close-minded, I have been told to read more, to open up to "new" ideas...you get the picture...which implies I snoozed my way though university, multiple bee courses, books, lectures and my own beeyard chores. I refrain from saying...want to compare overwintering results?? Because Thumper is right, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Or to put this in a shorter form: mentor lists are wonderful things, as are mentors, but there are pungent reasons why they may be thin on the ground!

As for innovation, our Provinical Apiculturalist Dr. Paul van Westerndorp gives good advice when he suggests new beekeepers "hew to standard practice" for a few years before trying unconventional management practices or equipment. Because keeping the bees for a few years "plain vanilla style" with mite control and feeding in dearths allows a new beekeeper to see the normal/possible arc of colony development over the course of a season or two, thus giving them a good benchmark to use when evaluating the effect of new practice.

Innovation is great, but it must be coupled with good critical thinking skills and fair evaluation. We need innovation (mites, small hive beetles, agri-sprays, degrading forage base, bee health issues). But we need a base of good standard practice suited to our locale as well.

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