> I really could care less the amount the Stanley brothers claim but only use the example to show there is a problem and like Jerry B. has said not necessarily a CCD problem.

Any region changes over time. Tompkins County, where I live, was known as the best beekeeping area in the world a hundred years ago. They made phenomenal crops from white dutch clover and buckwheat. Old photos taken at the time show very little forest cover in the entire region. Everything was cropped. 

But agriculture faded out in this area due to poor soil, damp weather, poor yields. The clover and buckwheat disappeared. Luckily for beekeepers, apples continued to thrive and the pollination business came into being. Trucks provided a way to move entire operations to better pasture, like the clover belt along the St. Lawrence River. 

Meanwhile, the forests have returned. In the past few decades, the main crop here has been goldenrod, but even that's changing. A friend of mine says the biggest problem here is that old fields of goldenrod are turning into forests and forests don't produce much honey (sometimes basswood, if you are lucky).

I knew places in San Diego County where a 300 pound average wouldn't raise anybody's eyebrows. But you couldn't run commercial outfit there. Too many people. In fact, even before the African bee arrived, apiaries had to be something like 500 feet from human habitation, which is reasonable because a typical San Diego apiary has 120 hives. 

The point of all of this is: conditions change, and there isn't a hell of a lot you can do about it, except move. Most of the NY state commercial beekeepers I know move, a lot. The ones that don't have other sources of income.

PLB

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