http://www.startribune.com/local/145445755.html?page=1&c=y

"Anderson said 15 to 20 percent of his bees used to die in a year. Now, the death rate has doubled, and beekeepers all over the country are seeing the same thing, he said" 

This is just such nonsense. It actually gets me riled up as I have to answer the public's questions about the non existent wide spread bee losses. Gee are your bees affected by this die off blah blah blah I saw in the local paper? 

I sit in the midst of corn country and have experienced probably the best winter survival ever with 2% loss in an outfit with 400 hives wintered over here in MN and south of MN. We had a very dry and mild winter, a string of 50's in Jan and record shattering March weather.  Most of the 2% loss were queenless hives and alcohol washes show very few mites this spring.  I'm pretty stunned at our survival statistics and the lack of dink hives too.

We use thymol in syrup and crystals for mite treatment and used fumidil in the fall. Our stock is VSH and also some isolated Russian yards and no we don't do almonds either. 

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