Scott Wilson said:

Recently, there has been a Bee-L thread about Neonicitinoid-Coated Zea 
seeds....
Prior to taking the UM course I would have watched and learned from the 
thread. Subsequent to the course I am instead reading the original 
research and augmenting my evaluation of the research with the input 
from the thread.
This may be a subtle modification but for me it is paradigm shift in my 
learning approach.

 
When we set out to design our ONLINE courses, I was very concerned about the 'mentoring aspect'. 

My Mentors:

I have a Ph.D. in Entomology.   But, I learned my beekeeping from one of the best and most successful commercial beekeepers that I've ever met - although he wasn't a joiner, so his name would not be familiar to anyone  on this list. I still regard him as about  as good as it gets - but when mites arrived, and since he was in a very isolated area and didn't migrate, he failed because he couldn't adjust what were best practices pre-mite.  

Along the way, I've had the good fortune to add to my experience and knowledge from people as diverse as Eva Crane and one of Von Frisch's original students,George Imirie ( a retired physicist who had a profound effect on east coast small scale beekeepers), large and small scale beekeepers in several European countries, Malaysia, several south American countries, New Zealand, and Australia - to name a few.  And I often learn as much or more from beekeepers as from my  academic peers.

 I've learned from all of them and have concluded that the best beekeepers can't be predicted based on factors such as education, age, wealth, size of bee operation, gender, or how many generations their family has been in beekeeping.  I've seen the best, the largest, the smallest, the exotic, and the ugly.  

The saying that all beekeeping is local comes to mind.

But, what constitutes a MASTER beekeeper - that's an  open question.  Is beekeeping  simply a craft or trade?  Clearly, even though we offer our classes for academic credit or certificate - the academic credit is not equivalent to a university B.S. (Appprentice), a M.S. (Journeyman), or a Ph.D. (Master), nor are theBut, what constitutes a MASTER beekeeper - that's an  open question.  Is beekeeping  simply a craft or trade?  Clearly, even though we offer our classeent to the Craft/Trade versions.  Yet, we do progress from basic concepts and practices (Apprentice), to more advanced tools and more of a graduate seminar approach (Journeyman), and will take the Master level to even more group interaction and problem solving, with guest experts.

Mentors for Master Beekeeping Courses:

Initially, I  was convinced that this was essential and that we would be hard pressed to emulate with an  ONLINE course.  And we clearly failed in our first Apprentice sections, but  we've gotten better.

I've changed my mind - and my conclusion is likely to antagonize some of the members of this list.  

The fallacies of the mentoring approach are that there are few, if any, standards for the craft of beekeeping; nor for most of  the books, magazines, blogs about beekeeping nor for the experience, background, education, or training (if any)  of mentors.  Some are truly masters - most are not.

Let's consider a few examples - is an academic instructor or researcher a Master or well qualified to mentor? Some are very knowledgeable about  bee biology, best practices, how to conduct research - but most of us would  likely fail at commercial beekeeping.  And as we see by he articles discussed hear, some are marginal beekeepers - not even checking for mites.  And I see this very evident in some of the molecular/genomic folks who let someone else manage the bees - so that they can focus on their laboratory methods and research.

Is a 4th generation beekeeper a Master? Maybe in the terms of beekeeping as a career, but many haven't a clue who Eva Crane was or have never read an original research paper or ever had a course in bee and floral anatomy and too many don't have a microscope or any idea of why they might want one, and if they have one, how to use it.  (Randy has changed this a bit, but it's still not a go to tool for many).  

Is a small scale to side-liner scale beekeeper like George Imirie a Master?  Possibly, but note, he was an academic first, who applied his knowledge and approach to his beekeeping and had very strong convictions about how to keep bees - not all of which I would agree with.

Is it someone who  teaches beekeeping classes for a bee association, or for an adult education course, or for a small college - maybe, but often someone who has read a bit and isn't shy about 'sharing' their knowledge.  Some are superb, others like the attention.

Here in MT I've seen "beekeeping" instructors that I shudder when I hear what these so-called experts are teaching - especially when their success at beekeeping consists mainly of  knowing where to buy replacement  bees each spring, since few or none of their colonies survive the winter.

Which leads me to my attitude about new students who either want to learn about bees or work for us.  My first question - do  you have any background/experience with bees.  Most don't and that is often a plus.  I don't have to 'unlearn bad habits'.   I do want the kids and grandkids of beekeepers, because they aren't afraid of bees and may teach me a few things I didn't know - but it's always  a bit uphill when we disagree.

So, where am I at on this topic? I consider Bee-L to  be a form of mentoring.  The Discussion Forums in our classes are another.  The bad news, it's sometimes a bumpy road.  But overall, it forces discussion, clarifies points, challenges thinking, and usually lays  out the arguments.  And as in the real world, things are seldom black and white, but  shades of grey.  

So sadly, the only mentors that I have any way of assessing are the students that we instruct and more importantly, each class as a whole.  We form temporary communities, and when we end, I aim them at Bee-L and our next level class.  And they want more, as they should.  So we're working on that this winter.  But in many ways, they as a group become the best mentor.  A mentor of unknown background, experience,  training, and philosophy may be a gem, or may be part of the problem.  I know that Melinda can testify to this in terms of a bee club she encountered.

So, I really like Scott's comment about  a paradigm shift.  Which brings my rambling thoughts to my final conclusion.  If you want to take our courses to learn a craft - look elsewhere.   We expect more.











 


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