Long before I knew it had a name, I wrote about the Dunning-Kruger effect in beekeeping. In a blog post titled “I Was So Much Smarter Then,” I revealed the results of my one-sided, unscientific, and misguided study on the knowledge base of beekeepers as it correlates with the time they’ve been keeping bees.
From my extensive research, I discovered that first-year beekeepers know the least. Not a surprise. Many don’t know a mite from a mouse — after all, they both live in beehives — but that’s okay because the beginners absorb knowledge and learn fast. They read, attend classes, ask questions. They are grateful for any help you may offer.
The trouble starts in year two
The practitioners who know the most, those who know everything there is to know about bees, are in their second and third years. If you have a question, they have the answer. If you have an opinion, they let you know what they think of it — and of you. They don’t read, because they could write it better. They don’t listen, because they could say it better.
Trust me, they are beekeeping prodigies. If you need a fast answer and a confident opinion, they are the people to see. If you want an explanation not tempered with caveats, they are the ones to provide it. I am happy for them as they revel in their sea of knowledge.
It’s all downhill after that
Then, long about the fourth year, something happens — their knowledge erodes. It’s not that they know less, but they suddenly grasp the complexity of beekeeping. They realize they’ve learned but the tip of the iceberg.
These more experienced beekeepers see issues as complex rather than simple. They see answers as multi-faceted, not smooth and round. The amount they want to learn gradually becomes infinite. As their knowledge increases, their answers become longer, beginning with phrases like “It depends” or “It could be several things” or “I need more details.”
The tree of knowledge
Back in my 2013 blog post, I compared the learning pathway to the tree of knowledge. The first-year beekeepers occupy the ground, right where the tree breaks through the soil. The second- and third-year beekeepers live on the trunk where everything is smooth, well-defined, and orderly. Those who’ve been at it longer are in the limbs, branches, and twigs where every question has a complex answer, and all the pathways are obscured by leaves.
Knowledgeable beekeepers go to lectures, read scientific papers, and experiment. As their knowledge increases in multiples, they feel they know less, yet they want to know more. They are awed by the bees, mesmerized, humbled. They never have fast answers, only well-considered opinions tempered with experience and the realization that, with bees, there are no simple answers.
Beekeepers are not alone
While I was busy thinking my observations were brilliant, I did not know of the research reported by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger at Cornell University. In 1999, they published a paper titled, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.”1
In part, the paper says that incompetent individuals dramatically overestimate their own ability and are unlikely to recognize competence in others. It’s not until they eventually become more competent that they realize they were ever incompetent. Conversely, those who are truly competent often underestimate their ability as they embrace the intricacy of their subject.
According to an article in Psychology Today, the tendency to overestimate one’s own ability “may occur because gaining a small amount of knowledge in an area about which one was previously ignorant can make people feel as though they’re suddenly experts. Only after continuing to explore a topic do they realize its extent and how much they still have to master.”2
The crash before the climb
The best thing Dunning and Kruger gave us is their curve. The curve shows that as a beginner we start from zero and learn fast. Our self-confidence ascends like a rocket, nearly straight up. When we’re on the top of the curve — which doesn’t take long — we know it all.
Unfortunately, while we’re sitting at the top, we don’t know what we don’t know. Characteristically, our confidence doesn’t stall until something causes us to question our own ability, something like an apiary full of dead-outs. Then we avalanche to the bottom of the chart, landing in a humble heap in a deep trough.
But after that, true learning begins. In a painfully slow process, fallen messiahs brush away the humiliation, shed the arrogance, and begin a journey toward enlightened beekeeping. The second hump on the Dunning-Krueger curve is where we all want to be. This is the place where true experts reside and thrive.
I used to know it all
I am speaking partially from experience gathered from my website, classes I’ve taught, and lectures I’ve given. Sad to say, I’ve also been there myself. I used to know much more about bees than I do now. In fact, I used to know just about everything.
However, once I began studying bee nutrition, pathogens, pesticide interactions, reproduction, genetics, health, hygienic behavior, flower selection, pollen composition, bee communication, social interactions, nest-site selection, and environmental stressors, something happened. I knew less and less every day until I knew — and still know — almost nothing. I soon realized I had but one short lifetime to puzzle through an endless assortment of parameters, confounding variables, inconvenient facts, and scads of combinations and permutations.
Too much help from the top
The most troublesome beekeepers are the ones who rapidly ascend the steep slope and get stuck at the peak, sometimes for many months or even years. Having learned everything there is to know in ten months, they contemplate us mere mortals from their aeries in the sky and condescend to help.
And what do they do? They share their ineptitude. They pontificate in books and blog posts and slide shows and videos, trying to educate us laggards in everything bee. They even teach classes. They have simple, one-sentence explanations of every problem and they can’t understand why white-haired beekeepers with forty years of experience can’t give a straight answer.
And the YouTubers. Oh, my. Beekeepers on YouTube should be grateful my rapidly spinning hive tool can’t traverse the ether and conk them on the veil. YouTubers seem to have no filters — after all, they never see their words in print and never ask for edits. Much of it makes no sense, yet newbies thrive on it.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult for newbies to distinguish between sense and nonsense. Especially on the Internet, it’s easy for the know-it-all to out-compete the reserved professional. The right keyword and a little glitz can garner far more followers than a reserved and staid professional.
Preparing for the fall
In case you don’t know what an aerie-perched know-it-all looks like, here’s a real-life example.
A few years ago, I stopped at our local post office, a dilapidated trailer painted forget-me-not blue with a chalky red stripe around the edges. The postmaster took one look at me, threw open the window, and called to a man in the parking lot, asking him to come back inside. Then he turned to me, “There’s someone I want you to meet. A new beekeeper.”
Oh no! I wanted to hide, but there was no place to go — just one tiny aisle, one warped door, one splintery porch. The entire place lurched south as the guy mounted the steps.
I do not enjoy answering newbie questions when I’m not bee-ing, but I needn’t have worried. The guy never stopped talking long enough to take a breath. He said he just moved to town from the city. He now lived only three miles away. He got his first package of bees back in April, but now that he had rock-solid experience under his belt (it was June), he planned to expand to 500 colonies. He had his woodenware on order.
I did the mental math and decided my bees were toast. I must have mumbled something about mites because he reassured me.
“Oh, don’t you worry about that, little lady. I’m a treatment-free beekeeper and I know for a fact if you don’t start treating them mites, they ain’t ever showin’ up.”
Little lady? My skin crawled as I listened. And although the postmaster had introduced me as a “fellow beekeeper,” the newbie showed not a scintilla of interest in anything but his unprecedented success. All six weeks of it.
Predictably, I lost more colonies that fall than I did in the previous five years combined. But I don’t know what happened to the guy. I never saw him again, never heard a peep. I feel blessed.
Getting a head start
One thing the Dunning-Kruger curve doesn’t address is the people who know it all before they start. One wrote to me last year. She began, as they often do, with obsequious praise for my website.
The soon-to-be beekeeper is building her first hive. Based on her extensive knowledge of honey bees, she had a laundry list of “improvements” she plans to make, including:
- Interior lighting so her bees can work at night
- Crossbeams of ultraviolet radiation that sweep the hive entrance and kill viruses and other pathogens that may attempt entry
- Space heaters so her bees can stay toasty and avoid clustering
- Aquarium heaters to keep the syrup at afternoon-tea temperature
- Beetle traps with warm, bacon-scented oil to better attract beetles and mites
- A solar-powered air circulation system
She finished by asking for my opinion.
Probably because of all that fulsome praise, I took the time to explain why I thought each idea might not work. I have nothing against innovation, but if you don’t know what normal looks like, how will you know if you’re getting results?
Ultimately, I suggested she spend her first year using standard protocols and learning everything she can about honey bees and varroa mites. I suggested an apprentice-level course as a good place to start, and I endorsed some fact-based, no-nonsense books including The Beekeeper’s Handbook by Sammataro and Avitabile, Honey-Maker by Rosanna Mattingly, and Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping by Caron and Connor.
I expected the next correspondence, and it arrived swiftly. After the newest rendition of unctuous praise, she explained in painstaking detail why I was wrong on each count. Then she said something about a time warp. (Was she calling me a fossil?) Furthermore, she said books and courses would be of little use since she’s read so much already.
So here’s a woman who’s never kept a bee in her life. If you placed some bugs on a table — bumble bee, honey bee, drone fly, yellowjacket, leaf-cutter — I’m sure she’d be hard-pressed to pick out the honey bee. Yet, she knows more than the professionals, authors, teachers, writers, and the people she questions.
I used to try to help these people, but not so much these days. The people in it for the long haul will slide down the curve, cross the abyss, and eventually become good beekeepers. The others just disappear, maybe open a restaurant, run for president. You know the type.
Is the Dunning-Kruger effect real?
Like many popular theories, the Dunning-Kruger paper is subject to constant criticism, especially the statistical analyses that are part of the original paper. But its general applicability to human behavior is strong, and most of us have seen examples of it — or even slid down the curve a time or two ourselves.
Learning about the work of Dunning and Kruger made me more tolerant of know-it-alls. To be sure, they are still irritating, but now I know the condition is not confined to beekeepers. People in any field can fall victim to overestimating their knowledge, and I find that comforting. I can now rationalize that the overzealous second-year beekeeper is suffering not from an overdose of bee venom but from being human.
In fact, the Dunning-Kruger paper spawned real-life empathy in me because now I know those on the top of the first curve will soon come crashing down, sliding to earth at breakneck speed, bursting their egos along the way, and dissolving into a pool of harsh reality.
Alright, I admit that only part of what I feel is empathy. The rest is pure glee.
Rusty
Honey Bee Suite
References
- Kruger J, Dunning D. 2009. Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self Assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121-1134.
- PsychologyToday.com. 2021. Dunning-Kruger Effect. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
So where does “imposter syndrome” fit in with this?
I never had that first year confidence. Seven years in, I’m pretty sure I’m a very bad beekeeper. Or at least if not VERY bad, then certainly a lot better in theory than I am in practice. I am confident I would be a better beekeeper if I could just figure out which books and websites the bees are using, so I could concentrate on those.
I never heard the term either Granny so I googled the term… a copy and paste definition >Imposter syndrome is loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments.
It would seem to be the mirror image of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
What I’ll say is that in many years in academia, I’ve decided that you should be very suspicious of people who DON’T have imposter syndrome. The best researchers I interact with have imposter syndrome.
Late to read, late to comment.
I’m a retired vascular surgeon. The first time out of training, fellowship, that you take a scalpel to a patient’s skin in order to expose and ‘fix’ their arteries, you feel like such a fraud? Really, the SWAT team should burst through the OR doors at any moment.
After a number of years that fades. Then, just before you retire, as your junior associates ask you many questions, for which you have many answers, you realize, finally, that you may know your field. (BTW, most of your answers are ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that.’) Then you retire. And, start over with your abejas.
Daniel,
Thanks for the insight. It’s something to think about.
I loved reading this. We have been keeping bees for 35 years. Every year that passes is another year I am amazed by what I learned while observing them, coupled with how much remains unknown.
My career was in the investment business, as a fiduciary. I can’t begin to say how much this syndrome infects newbie investors who have read a book or two and purchased a few stocks which subsequently go up. Instant brilliance. I always found this amusing. Fortunately, they are easily ignored.
When I started beekeeping in college a century ago in the 70’s, it was much easier without the varroa mite problem back then. I did have a problem with wax moths one year not being careful and leaving a few frames out and reinstalling and introducing wax moth larvae into the hive. Newbee mistake.
The new millennium posed many complex problems and new ones like pesticides, lack of food due to suburban growth and tough winters.
I have to agree the learning curve is accurate as stated. Given time, we all learn from our mistakes.
At one time I heard Dr Conner call this the ‘second-year beekeeper syndrome.’ If you read back thru the ABJ for the last 50 years you may discover this human malady as applied to beekeepers is not new. After some extensive interaction with the ‘commercial crowd,’ you may even come to the conclusion that this malady is not totally related to how long you have been keeping bees or for that matter how long. Everyone likes a simple soundbite for every question they pose and I suspect a lot of folks get pretty tired when I often reply ‘it depends.’ Without a doubt when you add variables like location and time scale the answer may get pretty complex.
I guess I don’t fit into the “normal” curve and I think I’m glad. I’m a 2nd year bee-keeper and while I’m enjoying it more than I did the first year, I feel like I know less than ever! I just can’t seem to wrap my head around their schedule of doing things and I’m pretty sure they don’t give a hoot about my schedule for them doing things. Thanks for the interesting article 🙂
I totally agree with you! You do the course, get a (nuc) colony, and you’re away. Then you maybe study for some of the BBKA education modules, and suddenly – Wow, there’s so much to learn here. And now after 15 years of beekeeping I now realise how enormous this subject is! And that’s why I’m hooked on it!
Fascinating! The Dunning-Kruger effect describes my own experience with higher education.
I’ll admit that I don’t keep bees, I just enjoy observing and trying to identify the ones that visit the flowers in my neighborhood.
I read that and blushed.
Thank you, Rusty, for this post. After 12 years I feel that the sea of beekeeping knowledge gets ever wider and my attempts to stay afloat in it take me ever further from the shore. 🙂
Thanks, Rusty. Good to see you back; I have missed you. I enjoy my bees I am up to 46 hives now. If they live through winter it will be a blessing. I do everything I have learned to do from Bob Binnie, Ian, and Kamon. They are on Youtube, but they have real knowledge.
They are commercial beekeepers that run 400 to 3000 hives I watch them for their management, if they can keep their 3000 hives alive they are worth watching. Then there is Mr. Dunn and David Burns. These 2 men have only 20-30 hives and they are great as well. I watch these folks because I know nothing. I want to be successful in beekeeping, just a sideliner that loves their bees. Your writings are great. I enjoy reading them. In real life where I live, I have met the people u were talking about, know-it-all beekeepers. They refuse to treat etc because they are not going to make weak bees. And in the end, they make dead ones. Anyway have a great day
The “little lady” alone would have done me in. We’ve been keeping for five years and have never felt competent. So much depends on the situation. Still, we persevere, attending field days and meetings, and learn something new almost everywhere we go. Thank you for giving us a name for our experience.
Great article. We see it a lot with our Local Association beginners. Though it’s interesting that the ones who remain dogmatic that they know it all seem to disappear after the first year never to be heard of again and the ones who remain open minded become committed to the hobby.
Hopefully I don’t think I have suffered too much from the Dunning Kruger effect. Although I am only in my second year of keeping my own bees I have been fortunate to look after our Association Apiary’s 18 hives for 3 years and have had some supportive mentors, both of which have taught me how much I still don’t know.
I think one of the best things about beekeeping is discovering new things and the intellectual challenge of working out why bees do what they do.
I am a physician and I see this all the time with new residents. They eventually learn the hard way after a humbling event. As in most things in life, experience and common sense win out.
This is so ‘in the moment’ for me today. A couple of weeks ago a beekeeper in her first year wrote on our asociation FB page that she’d been asked to talk to her local infant school children about bees. Somebody else queried the wisdom of this and I replied (as a joke really) with: ‘If you need to know anything about beekeeping ask a second year beekeeper’. This is a standing joke locally. Well I was really taken to task over it and called ‘a crabby old beekeeper’ for not seeing the beauty of a newbie wanting to share her newfound knowledge with small children. My reponse was this: Small children are capable of asking very deep questions and they should be answered fully and accurately. Your post here is so appropriate!
Thanks, Linda. And I agree with you. Kids remember everything you tell them, and if it’s not true, they resent it years later.
I’m so grateful I learned from reading The Beekeepers Handbook and subscribing to your site. Even articles like this are enjoyable. Thank you Rusty.
Please may I post this article on Wharefedale Beekeepers Association FB page?
Linda,
Sure. That’s fine.
Great article….Corresponds to all professions!!
Thanks
Hi Rusty! This has been a very interesting read!
I’ve been there myself, it takes time and a lot of self-awareness to realize that you don’t know it all. Sometimes I also struggle with another interesting psychological dilemma: the imposter syndrome. What if all I have written, even if it’s backed up by all of the sources I have read and cited at the end of the articles I have posted on my blog, is completely wrong? What if even after reading tons and tons of papers, I still can’t feel like I can write/talk about it with confidence?
So I end up reading and researching a single topic for months and months, spiraling down a rabbit hole made of “let me just read another paper and then I will write this article… Just one more paper!”
Maybe I’m still inside the “valley of despair” part of the graph 😀
Thank you, Silvia
I have to agree with Silvia. It is easy to get trapped in the pit of recognizing you know nothing. I prefer to think of the initial stage as passionate enthusiasm; perhaps these people come across as obnoxious to some of the veterans out there; but perhaps that enthusiasm is still worth sharing, even if we come across as religious zealots. I find I feel this initial intoxication in almost everything I dive into – but then the reality of how little I know (and how I’ve possibly been doing it all wrong) can completely paralyze me. For example, I haven’t been able to write on my garden blog for months – and yet I find miracles every day in my garden that are surely worth sharing, even though I do not fully understand them, nor am I any kind of expert. Perhaps the important thing in all this is the interaction – whether it be with our fellow beings or with nature itself – and through that, we can all, with a little humility, keep on learning.
♥
Thanks so much for this, Rusty. After 8 years of keeping bees, I feel like I’m finally asking the right questions, and sometimes even understanding the answers. And since this is the Comments section, let me add…
There’s a more extreme version of D-K here in Los Angeles: brand new beekeepers who make a Facebook page advertising their hive inspection service. For a (high) price, they will get you all set up with bees of your own — inevitably a feral swarm that grows up to be aggressive. Same with live bee removals. After a few swarm catches, suddenly a new business pops up, offering to Save the Bees for just $250/hour.
One more: I have the utmost respect for experienced beekeepers who share their hard-earned knowledge. I’m very grateful to learn from them. But it should also be said, many long-time beekeepers are not eager to consider new ideas.
Feed bananas to bees? “That’s absurd!”
(In spite of the studies done by Katrina DeWitt and others.)
Screened bottom boards? “That’s just an overpriced gimmick!”
Alternative varroa treatments? “You fool! If you’re not vaporizing OA, you must be trying to kill your hives” and so on
[Rusty, if this too ranty, I won’t be sad if you don’t post it. But bananas really *do* stimulate the queen to lay]
David,
Interesting. My objection to feeding bananas has nothing to with bees. Bananas are cloned and very susceptible to certain diseases that live in the soil. When bananas in a plantation begin to get the disease, the growers simply flatten more rainforest to grow more bananas. So, nothing that I know of ruins more rainforest, threatens more species of both plants and animals, or decreases CO2 uptake more than banana production. I believe we already produce way too many bananas and I would hate to see it increased so we could feed them to bees as well.
That’s a good point too
Except that I’m way too cheap to buy bananas retail. Fortunately, my local grocer sells bruised bananas in a big 20 lb bag for $1.99. For any readers who would like to try it, I recommend checking with the produce managers at your supermarket. I’ll betcha they throw out bunches of imperfect bananas every night. In short: there are Earth-friendly bananas out there, yes, l’ll say it, ripe for the picking
Thank you, Rusty. As always, a thoughtful article. I am in my 50th year of hosting bees at my farm. Every year I find something to question or learn from observing and working with these amazing creatures. While it is true that some things are straightforward, when asked for an opinion I am hard-pressed to give a “black and yellow” answer. This is what makes it so exciting.
3 years ago, around my 5th year of keeping bees, I lost 8 out of 12 hives to varroa. I normally kept 4 to 6 hives, I thought double that would be just as easy. I was full of it.
Although I treated for varroa I didn’t check after treating. And then the autumn was hot and prolonged. First, one hive collapsed and it was a domino effect from there… It was horrible, I felt so overwhelmed and guilty for failing to pay attention, for being cocky…
It was a humbling experience, a much-needed reality check.
This year the new challenge is the Asian-hornet. So it gets more complex year on year. I built muzzles for the front of the hives. I take nothing for granted.
I’ve learned a lot from your site and insights.
I also went through my own learning/confidence curve. It peaked around the 4th-5th year but it peaked. And then it crashed…
Wasn’t easy moving on, almost felt like giving it all up. Almost.
The good thing is that this perspective can cross the descent… since I already know I know nothing about life I had a hunch that everything I read about beekeeping was littered with assumptions and rules, so have to dig deeper to really get to the questions… We know nothing about life and when we think we do we create all kinds of carnage. I’m in my 2nd year and got asked to speak to children too… I decided to just give them more questions like “who do you think is in charge of the colony”, of course out came “the queen!” “the workers!” Answer ” nobody knows, it’s a super organism, isn’t that interesting! what does that mean? etc etc. are we a superorganism too?” and that’s because of my background of already knowing that I know nothing and trying to dwell in that… however everyday I inevitably fall down into knowing… and have to move into question again. The intellect at this level can only know so much or slice it so many ways, which is why we need computers to take into account more variables, but then we still have to program them with limited knowledge of the variables that exist, which is still destructive. Beekeeping is such a beautiful allegory of interactions that are so complex just like us and so evolved as well. thank you for what you do Rusty, your articles are always thought provoking!
I read most of the available academic literature and watched all of YouTube before I started. Yes I monitor humidity and temperature in some of my hives and they are custom insulated and ventilated timber boxes I built myself. I’ve been keeping for one season (about to start my second) and have split the one hive I brought to 13 deep box hives and a few nucs. Have lost plenty more splits and nucs etc in getting to understand relocation and overwintering, queen introduction. I’m testing novel hive construction, new miticides and anti-afb /Nosema construction, reverse grafting + queen acceptance. 3d printed a rudimentary AI unit and did a SDI queen in my first season. Very much into grafting queens this coming season, I started splitting and queening the week I bought my first hive. I’m a chemist and a builder. However, the first thing to not believe is all the information read, until you have tried it several times on your own bees. Keep going Rusty, you’re building another good repository here.
Thank you so much for this article. I think I fit the pattern sometimes (perhaps more than I realize). Bees are truly fascinating with complexity upon complexity. Just when I’m feeling like I understand a piece of it, the bees prove me wrong. Beekeepers are by and large quite wonderful people … and mostly rather humble — I guess the bees will do that to you!
Dear Rusty
Thank you so much for the best giggle I’ve had for a few days. You see, I’m a first-year beekeeper and I believe everything you’ve said is spot on! (My perspective). I have mentioned to several people that if you learn by your mistakes, never so much has this been evident as in this first year of beekeeping. My mentor (bless his ever-patient soul), reminds me each time something happens that I must look to the beekeeper first.
Now that I have been forewarned, I will endeavor to do my best to avoid the pitfalls coming to me in the next couple of years.
Thank you
Beth
Bee mites are a problem. Oxalic acid will kill bee mites, a good article.
https://beeculture.com/oxalic-acid-effective-easy-on-bees-but/
Oxalic acid will kill bee mites
I train Beekeepers in Wales, UK, and I like to think that our trainees go away with an understanding of how complex bee behaviour is, and don’t go around behaving as if they know everything. But there are UK based Facebook groups for beginners, and I am often amazed at the confidence with which people on these sites, who clearly havn’t been keeping bees long, know the answer to every problem posed on the site. And I wish they would read the questions, and the answers given, before launching into their wonderful solutions to every problem!
Oh My Gosh! This was so me! My husband kept saying “you’re talking like you know – and I don’t think you know”….. Then I had an incident with an extremely aggressive hive this year – my third year and that woke me up truly – or knocked me down a lot of pegs – or I slipped down the curve or whatever. I loved reading this!! It is so true. I have a few newer beekeeper friends that probably should read this too LOL. Until they slip down the curve – I will think of your article and politely listen when they make suggestions.
Lorrie,
I love this story! At least you’re ahead of your friends. You’ll be flying up while they’re crashing!
Thank you for the article. I did not say that when I wrote my post. It is truthful but also inspirational to those who have thought of quitting when the going gets really tuff. PS – I mentioned it all to my kids when they were walking out the door in the morning to their summer jobs – maybe it will sit someplace!
I’ve been reading this site for years now & I’ve decided to emerge from lurk-town and comment. Woah, this article is really illustrating how I feel, personally, about beekeeping right now. I’m finishing up my 3rd season and feel like this year was a bit of a disaster (heavily influenced by the erratic decisions of an increasingly unhinged climate though, has to be said) and I know from other beekeepers in the area who have been keeping bees for many, many, many years that I’m definitely not the only one.
I feel like I used to be so sure of everything. You’d do an inspection and if you saw X you did Y.
I don’t really feel though that I was ever cocky, but I was at the very least comfortable that I was in the right direction in my decisions. Now I’m wondering….phew. When you do everything ‘right’ and everything still goes ‘left’, what then? Thanks for recommending the books, I’ll go check them out! You’re right about YouTube too (apart from one channel that I think is great)!
Ah, this explains why I feel less than enthused about my hives this year as I enter my 4th year of beekeeping. Thank you!
After keeping bees for 30 or so years, they have survived despite my efforts to help them.
Brilliant.
Bananas? Was actually thinking of trying bananas in bottom of brood box to kill various things bothering bees. As you probably know, bananas are more radioactive than water from fracking gas wells (which my bees love!), and doesn’t radioactivity do away with foulbrood?
Maybe I should also try a broken portion of marble kitchen counter top which is also radioactive??
Third year in and feeling I become less smart every year with these little girls…currently in a quandry…I had the feeling I was being robbed…bees fighting on the ground, a lot of bees weaving back and forth didn’t seem to be an orientation, so I reduced the entrance, put a board in front…everything I read here that might help…thought I had it licked. Then… I began a formic pro mite treatment with one strip…instructions say that entrance reducer should be removed to vent fumes, etc. Check today, looks like robbers have returned, bees fighting on the ground… Put reducer back on… the quandry: do I keep the reducer on and hinder ventilation? Remove the formic pro and keep the reducer? Remove the reducer and keep the treatment? Yikes! What would an experienced beekeeper do? Thanks in advance for any insight from yourself or others here!
JimBob,
Instead of using a solid reducer, use a piece of screen or hardware cloth with an entrance cut into it.
I am in my fourth year. My wife decided we, as in I, should get bees. My father killed a couple of hives when I was young. I now could tell him what the cause was. My first hive, a three lb package, winter-killed from moisture, I hadn’t found quilt boxes, and also extreme cold. I do quite a lot of research on youtube but you have to be sure the info is legit. You have given me very good pointers. I am in the northeast, so the weather is similar for many parts of the year.
I must be slow. Been keeping bees for four years now and I probably still come across as a second-year beek.
Thanks for sharing this article. I find this is true of many newer bee keepers. Also there are those who have been doing it for a while that should read this.
May I share this on our Beekeeping Association website (Gloucestershire UK)?
Mike,
Absolutely!
Hi Rusty,
This is brilliant. I didn’t know it could even be explained. I went from knowing nothing about bees to managing over 500 hives in three seasons. I am now in my fourth season as a commercial beekeeper in New Zealand. I am currently undertaking my NZ level 4 in apiculture and while trying to tap into the knowledge I have learned I am incredibly frustrated at knowing the wedge of the stuff I don’t know in my beekeeping knowledge pie chart is getting larger every day. I don’t even want to think about the wedge of the stuff I don’t know, I don’t know about. Your website has been so valuable in my learning.
Spot on – loved it. I came across your blog thanks to reading Ann Chilcott’s blog “The Beelistener”, and your guest blog there. It was a no-brainer to decide to subscribe. It’s my 5th year of beekeeping and I definitely have realised I know almost nothing about the honey bees, really. I’m the editor of our local BKA’s Newsletter and will point our members to your blog in our upcoming October issue.
Thanks, Paul. Much appreciated!
I loved this article! I may be guilty as charged. During my second year of beekeeping a Sustainability Committee asked me if I would teach an Intro to Beekeeping class. The whole beekeeping enterprise was fascinating and “heady” at the time, so I agreed. The only real “qualification” I possessed for teaching such a class was that I knew more than the committee and students did. But truth be told, I knew very little compared to what I had yet to learn. I’m still learning; a lifetime proposition in beekeeping! I will say that I knew my limits at the time so my slides included only information that I actually knew. Lets just say I gave out a lot of resource information!
Jane,
I love it when beekeepers “come clean” about this. They are usually the very best ones!
Human nature, and the weaknesses we’re all predisposed to is what this gets at. It also generalizes too much in my opinion. Some folks are humble and mature, some are not. Some will shout loudly and some will quietly give what advice they think is helpful.
The real problem with this is that experienced and knowledgeable beekeepers can become weary of doing the good work of mentoring.
A mentor needs optimism and encouragement, and lots of it. That is hard to maintain while you’re not being listened to and watching someone fail.
This article is fantastic. It is exactly how I feel when I talk to a more experienced beekeeper. I am going to my second year soon and I feel a lot of guys are more experienced and also more knowledgeable than me but my brain won’t process the information, and although I did learn on the course how to do splits, etc. I rich for this information as I plan to do so, atherwise it’s a waste of time. The same is with all the information: if I’m not at the stage to be ready to absorb it, I won’t waste my time.
I also believe learning and beekeeping is about great tuning to listen to the little stuff, being inquisitive and ability to observe and take moral of the situation. So if you take all the little advice you get from experience beekeepers dwell on them you will see the point and if you observe your bees behaviour you will know wherever to apply it or not. Like for egzample on my course they told me to shake not brush frames of the bees to get better view of the egg and larvae situation. My girls don’t like I’ve of those but my friend beekeeper said if you just shade them with the back of your hand they will move over. Now all of those methods have place and time to apply. Sometimes I need to shake them off but mostly I use hand method.
I recently did a talk at one of the larger bee clubs in our state. Before the meeting there is time for Q&A from new beeks. I opened with, “First of all, I totally don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m not sure you should be taking advice from me.”
Six years back at it, 15-25 hives, 20-50 mating nucs, master beek certificate, blah, blah…. 😀
I stand by my first statement.
Joe,
I love it!
This is just what I needed to read. I’ve been keeping bees for about 6 years now, never more than 3 hives at one time. I currently have one hive which I believe will survive this winter. With these crazy, oscillating Virginia coast temperatures this month I feel totally inadequate in knowing what I should be doing in the next week or two. I’m immensely glad that the group I belong to has its monthly meeting tomorrow. Believe me, I will be learning at the feet of those with more years and more hives with much gratitude as I “take the pulse” of what they are doing/plan to do in their apiaries.