--- On Mon, 12/17/12, allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



> Once you reach clean and sustainable, and naturally sized with Nature, problems stop and you fall to normal 2-3% losses per year, with up to 10% in real bad years

If that is true, Dee, then why were half or more of the hives in your yards empty, and why are you down to 'several hundred" hives?

reply:
Probably because equipment has been setting the the yards since the 1980s, and then added to when Ed and I shook down from 5.0mm - 5.1mm sizing and got rid of the LC comb, going to 4.9mm in about 1997 and never looked back, and so figure I got eqiupment for retooling and using for the rest of my life..............
 
And I no longer keep 1400 hives like in the 1980s/early 1990s.........and with major shakedown in 1997 to the 4.9mm have built numbers back......to about 1200, but then when Ed died in 2006 have taken numbers down slowly for what I can handle (and yes sold some, but no more)............yet I still keep around 700 to keep me busy, as I work by myself for the most part, except those coming for hands on learning now and then each year.
 
Dee

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