I agree in a general sense with Mike Palmer's observation.

My russians never built up in spring of 09 like normal and then built up on a shorter and smaller then normal summer flow. By late August the signs of trouble were evident but I did not have any perspective or history on this kind of situation and failed to act by stimulative feeding (rather then late fall supplemental feeding). 

A share of my russian losses occurred before winter, when many small hives were combined. 

Of the other two larger operations that had massive losses,  one felt he had some mite issues based on a reduced treatment plan and the other is not saying much but lost what he described as normal populations before winter over winter. 

What caught my attention was the two other operations are beekeepers with 30 years plus, each of experience and the fact that all of these operations were within a 300 mile radius and all long established Russian genetics. Clearly some common thread existed that caused the demise. 

I am going on the poor winter bee population theory. 

I have a hard time with global warming being human caused but we do seem to have less predictable weather patterns. This spring the ice went out on northern MN lakes up to 14 days earlier then 150 year records. We're running a good 10F warmer then normal so far but no precip since February. Fruit tree bloom is headed for a 3 week early bloom etc. The last normal bee season weather wise was 2006.  

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