"Most of us who are serious beekeepers, use  lbs(or tons) of honey/ hive counts * pollination contracts * surplus bees sold."

I know lots of TF people locally.  Even more if I include those who treat with methods well proven to be totally ineffective at killing mites.  I even know of beginners who have taken classes where they were told mites were not a problem and the only thing that killed hives was CCD so there was no need to treat for mites.  What I do not know is any such people who harvest anything like a reasonable crop of honey from over wintered hives.  I also see these people buying an awful lot of bees every year to replace the dead hives.  Or chasing swarms and cut outs every year and doing lots of splits to replace dead hives.  Year after year these people look at 50% to 100% death rates on their hives.  Year after year I look at 10% or 15% death rates and sell those people replacements and also harvest honey at the state average hive production using bees known to be miserable honey producers.  They kill the bees I sell them just as fast as they kill other bees.

Dick

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html