Hi Predrag

Losses here are variable - some near-total, some with relatively light losses.  Our bees' exposure to insecticides is likely to be mostly in spring when the oilseed rape flowers, and the bees are fine then.  

There are huge difficulties associating bee troubles with the factors that cause them, and when bees rely on one major crop you are adding not one factor but several.  For example, diverse forage will be nutritionally superior than just one source such as sunflower.  Another factor is that for successful wintering you need a pulse of brood raising in the autumn, a hard thing for a colony to achieve if it had little income since the sunflower bloom.

My impression from listening to winter losses here is that this last factor might be important (sorry, no real data).  Bees that were fed early enough in the autumn, or had access to natural flows from heather, ivy or Himalayan balsam, tend to be the ones surviving the difficult winter we've just had.

best wishes

Gavin

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