Episode 407: Bad Beekeeping Advice

First though, my headline topic of taking advice, good advice or bad advice.

This all came about actually because I was listening to a podcast and of course they were offering advice.

But why should I trust that advice? And bringing it back to beekeeping, where do you get your advice from and who do you trust to give you the very best advice? I should start by saying the podcast was nothing to do with beekeeping.

It's a health and wellness podcast from the BBC.

It has some really interesting topics and this one just grabbed my attention because it doesn't really matter what subject or topic you're referring to.

Advice is advice.

It could be cooking, gardening, fishing, golf... or any other of the hundreds or maybe thousands of podcasts that are out there, including this one, of course, offering up advice.

So advice, what's good advice and what's bad advice? Well, exactly the same advice could be good or bad, depending on your own personal situation, your experience and your needs.

An example of this might be, in beekeeping terms, that I'm offering up some advice about extractors to someone and recommending the Lega Flamingo 28 frame extractor that I currently use because, well, it's a fantastic piece of beekeeping equipment.

And that might be really good advice for some beekeepers.

But if you only have two beehives and no honey room or storage space, it could be terrible advice.

Hopefully, that's an obvious example.

Another piece of advice that could be good or bad is this, don't ever buy a flow hive because they can't cope with granulated honey.

If all your bees have to forage on is oilseed rape honey, then that might be fairly good advice.

But if you've never seen a drop of oilseed rape and all your honey is summer honey, it might drive you away from buying a hive that is perfect for you.

The difference between good and bad advice might just be your personal situation and your ability to analyse the advice and make an informed decision.

Another important factor about taking beekeeping advice is who we take the advice from.

Over the years, I've taken advice from many beekeepers and I would say most of it has been great, really helpful advice.

Some of it has been really poor advice and some of it has been fairly neutral advice.

Where I've always felt a little wary is when the advice has come from a really confident, dominant, sometimes loud beekeeper.

I'm sure you all know the types.

The type who tells you there's only one way of doing these things, their way.

And if you're not doing it like them, then you're doing it wrong.

they always seem to make sure there's an audience around while they're offering up their pearls of wisdom too.

And usually these other beekeepers are that expert's disciples.