> will rearrange a brood nest in a heartbeat to better winter. Time
consuming
> but I hate dealing with deadouts.

Rearranging brood nests after August is a prescription for hive death here
in Alberta.  We have learned to leave them the way they are or lose the
hives we have 'helped' while those we left 'unassisted' winter well.

> One of the sites Allen listed to look at for winter information listed
> around 25% winter losses with their methods.  I consider 25% to be
> unacceptable.

These are the facts of life in areas where the wintering season extends from
the end of September to the beginning of May and bees cannot be worked
extensively during that time without risk of harm.

The writers cited are being honest.  These are typical long term (+/- 5%)
averages for commercial operators who count losses in May, count small hives
in their losses, and don't pretend to save weak hives by stealing brood and
bees from stronger colonies.  Some years losses can be as low as 6%, but
then again, other years can bring losses of up to 50%.

It is possible to reduce losses by extensive beekeeping late in the previous
season, but the economics of trying to save a questionable hive are poor.
The cost of such intervention is high, time is very short, and the success
uncertain.  Wintering begins in spring, and, by late summer, hives that have
not made the grade might just as well make it on their own, or die.

One of the less obvious reasons is this:  'Good' beekeepers change the
majority of queens each year.  When changing queens we buy queens from
suppliers whose stock has done well before, BUT, each year, of necessity,
the suppliers use different breeder queens and raise thousands upon
thousands of queens from each.  As a result,  the stock may have changed and
the bees sold in any one season may not winter as expected.  Beekeepers
using a large number of queens from one or two batches may thus suffer huge
unexpected losses.  This effect is less obvious in areas where winters are
short, since most of the losses are hives that dwindle near the end of the
confined period, and if that period is shorter, the losses are
correspondingly less.

I have written extensively about this and other factors before.  Some of the
material is in the logs and some is on my site at
http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/

> I have had those levels before (not often)  and place the
> blame on myself and not mites or cold winters.

I've been to Missouri in Feb and March and thought it quite balmy.

Mention has been made of the influence of latitude on wintering.  In my
experience, the two important factors (for beekeepers) that are directly
dependant on latitude are the *length* of winter and the length of days
during summer.  Other factors, such as temperature and weather are less
directly related.

Winter is _at least two months shorter_ in Toronto than in Calgary.  I trust
that winters are even shorter in most of  the US.

allen