I've read perhaps two-dozen books on beekeeping, but the vast majority of my experience was accrued as an actual beekeeper, in talking with beekeepers (yes, beekeepers have meetings, too), in hanging out with beekeepers, subscribing to beekeeping magazines, and, lastly, in taking short courses in beekeeping. Alas, I haven't done any beekeeping since I moved to NH, and I'm now somewhat rusty (eg., the amount I know about the relatively recent plague of mites is pretty small, and I have no idea as to the current state of the Africanized bee incursion). Nevertheless, for a while there, I probably qualified as an "expert;" I even briefly flirted with the idea of pursuing entemology.
In other words, I have to agree: books are great. And, for computer folks, essential: there's just too much that needs reference. (Eg., if I were to switch from three-banded Italian honeybees (the "default" honeybee in North America) to, say, grey caucasian honeybees, I don't imagine that too much would change. If one wants to switch from writing VB on Windows to Java on Linux, it's time to hit them books.) But books are far from the only way to learn stuff, especially when it's something that's not academic in nature. As a side note, one of Maddog's favorite sites to visit, Brazil, is responsible for Africanized honeybees (a/k/a "Killer Bees"); they were released to the wild in 1956 during some hybridization experiments; whether this was accidental, or "accidental," is still a matter of debate. -Ken (who's finally recovering from a damn bronchitis episode, and trying to catch up with his e-mail... backwards.) P.S. Get me drunk, and I'll even quote beekeeper poetry to ya'. ;-) _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
