Timescale to mate of virgin queens.

[prakel]

This is probably what Roger Patterson is getting at when his makes his claim that they are not suitable for beginners.

I'm always dubious of people who claim that something is too complex for a beginner when in fact beginners (at everything) come in all shapes and kinds. I personally see it as a rather arrogant stand to suggest that being a beginner means you don't have the brains to do something that maybe a more experienced exponent has found difficult, almost like discouraging a child from doing something incase they surpass their parent.

Some people won't get it but others will and to be truthful I don't think that it's got anything to do with the length of time they're involved.

The great and the good should perhaps be using their positions constructively to encourage people to 'have a go' and find out the truth for themselves, what's the worst that can happen?

[Jon]

In our queen rearing group some of the 'experienced' beekeepers had a disastrous season with queen mating and some of the first timers did very well.
One beginner who joined the group bought her first Apidea mid June and had got two mated queens out of it by mid August. She used them to requeen her two top bar colonies after removing the queens and introducing the new ones via a cage.
There are a couple of 40 year+ beekeepers in the group who cannot remove a queen from an apidea and put it in a cage yet a beginner can follow instructions and do it first time and successfully requeen two colonies.