> Recent studies have shown that beekeepers are losing approximately 30 percent of their honey bee colonies each year, up from historical norms of ten to fifteen percent overwintering losses experienced prior to 2006.

Yes, well I scrutinized this little item at great length. I think one principle factor that is usually overlooked is this:

Back in the 1950s and 60s, one of the common management plans was to only winter over the very good hives, to the point that they might cut back by 50% in the fall, by combining etc. 

But these days people are reluctant to cut back and try to keep everything alive. So you can see that if you don’t cut back and lose 30% you end up with more hives alive in the spring than if you cut back 50% in the fall and lost none.  And when the goal is to have bees to rent in February, you would gamble on them, rather than cull them. Trying to winter over more junk = more loss over winter.

The other thing is, lots of beekeepers don’t experience real winter, so there aren’t strictly speaking winter losses, but they are constantly losing colonies. But they are also making new ones as fast as the old fizzle, which makes it impossible to put a number on the rate of loss, if you include the colonies created. For example, the old Canadian practice of wintering over no colonies, then buying packages. Is that zero loss or 100% loss?

PB

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