"No one really knows EXACTLY how many total hives were in the US... either in 1945 or today."

Amen to that.  It seems rather obvious that the current stated number of hives around 3 million is pure fiction.  For the state of Ohio the official count is likely no more than half of the actual count.  We have enough queen producers in the US to requeen every one of those 3 million hives twice a year.  Does anyone think that actually happens?  The number of hives going to almonds is someplace around 1.8 or 2 million depending on who gives the answer.  Does anyone think every single commercial hive goes to almonds?  That idea is simply nuts.  We all know there are lots of commercial hives that do not go to almonds for a number of reasons.  So, if there are well over 2 million commercial hives we hardly have any back yard bee keepers at all.  Yet those back yarders buy lots and lots of packages every year.  I suppose they just promptly put them all in a hollow tree instead of a hive to keep the hive counts down?

In short our official numbers of hives appear to be well on the low side of actual.  Could easy be low by half in my opinion.  As Pete says, clearly the data is garbage.  All we can hope is no one makes any decisions based on the official data.

Dick

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