I'm way north of PA and MA. I've looked at a couple hundred already, 
taking advantage of the snow-less winter.

I'm seeing all the clusters in the top box. Cluster sizes from small to 
huge. All seem to be on honey and should be ok until sometime in March. 
We'll be checking more yards in a couple weeks. Checked all (350+) of 
the nucs. About 1/3 needed fondant.

With all the colonies I've checked, there are only a handful of 
deadouts. I'm surely not seeing the massive losses reported in the 
Plattsburg, NY paper. As far as I'm concerned, this is another scare 
story designed to sell copy. The beekeeper sighted loses most of his 
colonies every year. The Press Republican in Plattsburg always has some 
gloom and doom story about this beekeeper and his bee losses. Just read 
the "Bee Facts" he quotes...

 >The warm weather this winter meant the varroa mite didn't go dormant, 
like they do most winters, and their population exploded.

The varroa population exploded in the winter??

 >A healthy hive has about 100,000 bees, a figure that typically drops 
to about 30,000 by spring.

When was the last time you had colonies with 100,000 bees?

 >Part of that is because the male bees are pulled from the hive and 
dismembered in late fall because they are not needed to help the hive 
survive during winter.

Tens of thousands of dismembered drones??

 >The weather during the rest of the winter isn't as important now as in 
years past because of the heavy losses...

What???

Rather than claiming varroa didn't go "dormant", perhaps the issue is 
inadequate varroa control in the fall. We had a really poor bee season 
in 2011. Flooding rains early, heat and drought in mid-summer, and a 
hurricane that destroyed the goldenrod flow. The bees had a difficult 
time raising bees for winter if the hives were located on the clay of 
the Champlain valley. Small amount of brood with large population of 
varroa meant dead colonies early winter. Colonies that got a can of 
syrup in September were able to raise a nice cluster of winter bees.
Mike


From: *Peter L Borst* <[log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 9:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>


Personally, I have no qualms about taking the lids off hives in winter. 
I just question the realism of doing this to hundreds of hives in this 
region (Penn, NY, Mass, etc). Many yards would be inaccessible, and many 
hives would be tightly wrapped or packed.

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