I have been keeping bees for damn near 20 years. I first got started in the early 2000s when varroa destructor was mis-classified as jacobsoni and tracheal mites were still an issue. During this time, the internet was full of yahoo groups, mailing lists and new forums sprouting up, and new beekeepers like myself were sucked into them in an attempt to learn more about this hobby that was new to ourselves.

Early on some people became self-proclaimed experts on beekeeping and spouted their information on the internet. Most still are, and over the years they have managed to retain this internet celebrity despite numerous scientists and other beekeepers disproving their methods and approaches. These "experts" are convinced that scientific papers have little merit or are financed by large corporations and have influenced the studies for their own interests. Instead, they spout their anectdotal evidence to many new beekeepers via their internet celebrity platforms.

Most of us have learned better over the year after being sucked into their vortex ourselves and being spit out on the other side. Yet, even today, this very morning, I read on a popular beekeeping forum "I read so and so’s website and so I stopped treating and now all my bees are dead. What happened?" Well, duh.

This site is about analyzing beekeeping practices and beekeeping celebrities and showing you, the reader, why you need to ignore these some of these sites, read some other, less celebrated beekeeping information, and how to think critically about your own beekeeping practices, read and digest scientific information and apply appropriate information to your local beekeeping practices.

If one thing is certain in beekeeping, it is that all beekeeping is local, and that what one person does in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest , may not apply to a person keeping bees in a residential neighborhood California.

Read, comment, enter a real discussion.