>Except that many "successful" beekeepers have experienced large scale catastrophic and unexplained losses. I know many of them and they did everything they were supposed to do, and yet the bees collapsed. People seem to have an answer for everything. Explain that.

Pete, I made an effort to say that lightning does strike from the blue to even the most experienced and careful beekeepers sometimes. I was in fact thinking of your loss last year and of others reporting similar trouble as I wrote it. How did that get resolved by the way? I mean no offense and admire your knowledge and experience and try hard not to sound arrogant, maybe not successfully here. 

My point is that some beekeepers consistently have much better success than the alarming national loss statistics and that by studying their methods perhaps the losses would go down. If one does not lose colonies to mites, starvation, or known disease we would be nowhere near 40% or even 25%. That does not account for the unknown die-offs that unfortunately do sometimes occur and as I said deserve vigorous research.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA 

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