> 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 *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html