More numbers, up to 700,000 now.

> Beekeepers have reported the abandonment of about 700,000 hives throughout
the country, including 35 percent to 40 percent of the colonies in Florida.

> On the drive home, Hackenberg called fellow beekeepers, a blueberry
grower, an importer of queens from Australia. To all, he passed on the
latest, which suggested the situation was even worse than he had thought.

> "I've been talking to guys in Canada and New York who have just gotten out
to check their hives," he said to Danny Weaver of Texas, the current
president of the beekeepers federation. "Seventy percent seems to be the
magic number on bee losses."

Dan Dewitt
St. Petersburg Times
http://tinyurl.com/38l8pj

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