Oh, but it is, Finman, at least for many in this part of the world.
Let's look at it from a UK perspective: the average amateur beekeeper has enough difficulty keeping bees alive over winter, recognising swarming, producing colonies strong enough to make a surplus, and recognising disease and stroppy bees. The low standard of amateur beekeeping in this country has been criticised often, and rightly so.
Although novices are made aware that beekeeping involves a permanent state of learning about bees, equipment and the environment, and although we explain and demonstrate the basics any number of times, the information overload can be alarming and confusing. What a newer beekeeper needs is to grasp the essence of the job, with the plainest of equipment, without much experience (and inevitably some disaster), and yet succeed.
Why complicate that recipe? Take a look at the thread here discussing the
ways to use the original [URL="https://www.abelo.co.uk/shop/poly-hives-national/crown-board/"]Abelo crownboard[/URL]: it's been going for nearly a year and shows how £21 managed to answer questions no-one asked. It's all very well offering multiple uses of a tool, but to supply it without explaining the advantages only serves to confuse. Abelo must have recognised that eventually, and brought out
another version with fewer complications.
Compare that to the BS National polynuc: it is as straightforward as any other, except that it has the option to be divided in two and that feed can be given in different ways. To make sure that these variations were understood and used, BS had the sense to supply
a straightforward demonstration video. Without that, the average beekeeper would be lost, and onto Facebook or a forum asking what to do and getting conflicting advice.
You have the luxury of lengthy experience to deal with bees and equipment fluidly and variably, but the average UK beekeepers we come across often can't hold a hammer, don't recognise ivy though they may be ten feet from it, and want to go shopping while their bees swarm.
You're right: beekeeping ought not to be as complicated as described in this thread, but it has been made so. As Murox pointed out,
Sevareid...said that a leading cause of problems is solutions, and it's fair to say that the crownboard problem and the entrance problem didn't exist until solutions were offered.
