Thanks for wising me up Allen. 

 

1) I guess it is the perspective. Beekeeping as you describe it, with 500-2000 colonies and a lot of migration, is almost nonexistent in the western european data. The data I know best are the Dutch data, in which 95% of the survey population have less then 13 colonies (mean is 6 colonies, being steady over the last 5 years). Germany, UK and Scaninavia are similar, though they have more "bigger" operations so slightly bigger mean colony numbers. 

 

We do have a few "big" ones, with big being 200-800 colonies. These beekeepers use a "treat with oxalic in broodless periods" mite managment. Some because they find oxalic to be effective, some because amitraz/coumaphos are illegal here and fluvalinate does not work very well. 

 

These big oxalic using ones do have profitable operations, they pollinate. Honey is a bad gamble here, weather and flora are pretty poor, only smallies and 20-100 colony "sideliners" tend to produce that. 

 

We never analyse data of the big ones, because they are too rare and do things differently from the "normal" ones. Their rarity also blows up standard errors and confidence intervals. They do not give a true picture of how environment and management affect their losses. Well they do for their circumstances. But rarity stays a problem, honey bee colony loss data are sooo noisy, you really need big numbers to say something generally true.  

 

I would be really interested to see reliable data on big US beekeepers. How many big beeks are there...how many participate in surveys...what are their losses...do they give true info on what they do against mites...

 

2) Allen: "In my case, when I did not have adequate control after five oxalic applications, I fell back on Apivar and my bees are looking great in spite of the worst winter and spring I can recall in decades" 

 

5 oxalic applications. Can you tell me how and when you did that? 

 

The results of our survey 2013 are in, of course we have to publish first but I can tell you that losses were the lowest in years. No change in mite management can be seen. So what happened? 

 

Lennard

 


 
 		 	   		  
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