>
> >The severity of winter is a huge factor that confounds efforts to find
> trends and assign causes, is the quality and timing of the preceding flows
> and harvest.


Thanks for the information Allen!  I'm freshly returned from looking at
Aaron's bees in New York--the colonies looked like they had just returned
from California almonds after an excellent year!  The U.S. this winter
experienced the fourth warmest January in history.  The bees show it.

I spoke recently with a high-profile East Coast commercial beekeeper who
has a history of heavy winter losses due to CCD.  When I asked him to what
he attributed his colonies looking great this season for a change, he
explained the it was due to the weather last summer preventing his bees
from getting their usual toxic doses of neonicotinoids.

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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