> Does this mean larger than normal loss?

No, as I matter of fact my winter losses were  average to low this winter, 
less than 10% of which a solid percentage was bad beekeeping-starvation- due 
to lack of stores..we had a wet fall during our aster/goldenrod and after 
robbing too low I got "bit". I hate that worse than almost anything.
My guess is that because the queen shut down early less queens "ran out of 
eggs" during the "no mate" season.
I only had one starve from failure to follow stores-that seems to be a 
weakness in some bees.
Mites counts "seemed" to be lower than normal. Again I guess this was due to 
a longer "low/no brood" period than normal.
John Horton
N Alabama 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm