Hi Lurkers,
I'm hearing, as I do every year at this time, of operations crashing. Hard
to put it into perspective as to whether the reports are isolated or common.
I got this in my mail today "talked to some buddies this morning and alot of
bees are crashing again. heard of a guy who runs bees in north dakota, down
from 15,000 to 2,000 hives. not good. my buddy has lost all but 15 hives of
a semi load that went to n.d. on the sunflowers. his friends having the same
trouble. he wonders if its spray."
I was in a Midwestern state last week. One commercial beek told me what
happened there. Poor crop, so colonies were hungry going into winter.
Wasn't able to get mite treatments on to many colonies until October. Frost
killed rabbitbrush during bloom, so poor fall nutrition. Sounds to me like
"three strikes and yer out!"
The group in that state, in a show of hands, were down or even from last
year--only one was up in numbers.
I've heard a number of reports of mites just eating operations up. Ditto
for nosema.
Some reports sound like something else, perhaps "CCD." Is anyone seeing
anything that they would call "CCD?"
The wet, cool, weather and poor crop in many areas suggests that a lot of
colonies went into the winter in poor condition. Beeks were pouring the
syrup to bees moved to Calif. Kim Flottum predicts the shortest crop ever.
Also, we just had a cold snap in Calif--snow to the Valley floor. A cold
snap sometimes initiates colony crashes.
On the other hand, some beeks, such as Bob, are reporting the best bees in
years!
The big question is, are bees going to be long or short in almonds? Many
beeks are panicking and dropping prices. On the contrary, one large broker
predicts that we'll be as short as we were two years ago.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from you commercial guys--good, bad, or normal.
Are your numbers up or down? How do your bees look now that we've had a bit
of cold weather?
Thanks,
Randy Oliver
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