I wrote:

>It builds on two assumptions: that by culling 30% your losses will be 10%, and that by culling 10% your losses will be reduced to 10%; that is a non sequitur.

That should have read:

It builds on two assumptions: that by culling 30% your losses will be 10%, and that by culling 10% your losses will be increased to 30%; that is a non sequitur.

Peter Borst wrote:

>But why don't folks do it? I think it is because they are hoping for a mild winter where their losses would be low. In which case, culling fewer in the fall would result in more colonies in spring.

That is one reason.  I usually cull as few as possible as part of my queen breeding programme - I want to see just what can survive.

>In the old days, beekeepers expected to divide their colonies in spring, to reduce swarming and bring up the numbers. Now, many are scrambling to have as many strong hives as they can for pollination, which increases the impetus to gamble.

Here we do very little pollination, but those extra hives in spring are valuable for two reasons:
Our main crop is usually oilseed rape which can start flowering in March or April these days (always used to be May).  When the rape flowers is the time when we can most easily split colonies.
Extra hives can be split to provide nucs for sale.  Small but healthy colonies could just be sold as nucs.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

             ***********************************************
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