On 4-Jun-13, at 5:36 AM, allen wrote:

>> For a complete picture  of winter kill in Canada, please check the  
>> following website.
>> http://capabees.org/2012/10/23/capa-statement-on-honey-bees-losses- 
>> in-canada-2011/
>
> It will be very interesting to see how this past winter stacks up  
> when the numbers come in.
>

Hi Allen and all

Yesterday, a post came regarding Canadian Honey Council stats.  They  
showed that Alberta has, by far, the most bee colonies and highest  
honey production equal to 1/3 of Canada's total production.  The  
other two prairie provinces combined produced another 1/3.  Ontario,  
where I live, combined with the other 6 provinces made up the last  
1/3.  An other point was made that there are 7000 beekeepers in  
Canada.  I don't know how many beekeepers there are in Alberta but  
there are 3500 or more in Ontario(50% of the total). While there are  
some large beeks in Ontario (200-300), the rest are small operators  
(3000+).  I suspect that the opposite is true in Alberta in that  
larger operations outnumber small ones.

The Beeaware winter loss survey showed that losses were greater for  
smaller operations than for larger ones.  What do larger operations  
do that we smaller guys don't?  I suspect frequent requeening is one  
factor.  What are the others?

I used a pair of compasses set to the distance from Toronto Ontario  
to Peace River Alberta and found that the circle drawn centred on  
Toronto touched or encircled all of the 48 states except California  
and all the other provinces.  It would appear from this that methods  
used almost anywhere else would be more meaningful to me than those  
used in northern Alberta because they are so far away and so far north.


Bob Darrell
Caledon Ontario
Canada
44N80W  No flowers on our local Black Locust yet

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