--- Steve Noble <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Whether you are a believer in CCD or not, the scale
> of collapses that are 
> being or have been reported have to be at least
> noteworthy if not 
> alarming. 

Hello Steve,

I would say up front that I agree there are alarming
losses occurring.  I just happen to disagree that
every unexplained loss, and misdiagnosis is being
called CCD. 

Concerning the ‘scale’, I hear of a winter loss in
Canada, of I believe near 30%.  Although on the high
side, it is within range of average winter loss, and
yet being reported as alarming, or unusual?

The recent, if I recall correctly, 35% percent loss in
California Almond pollination. Well, I want to know if
this includes the colonies that succeed during
shipment,  queen failure, AFB, varroa etc.
Where are these figures?
Or are these all being categorized under the name 
CCD? Where are these other malady’s nowadays?, you
don’t hear much of them?  If they  took the  time to
categories these deaths in California almonds as CCD,
they ought to have figures for the other maladies that
occurred, but I have yet to see it.


If a 
> small percentage of them abscond or dwindle you can
> brush it off as par for 
> the course, but when you loose an unusually large
> percentage of your hives 
> you tend to think that it is, well, unusual.  

I agree, but a small opperation of perhaps less than 2
dozen hives, loosing a large percentage of their
colonies is nothing unusual.  

 The 
> real point is that it is devastating and whether it
> has one cause or many 
> we want to know what is causing these unusually
> large scale losses.

Sure it is!
But more devastating is repeating your mistakes due to
a misdiagnosis.  

Beekeepers nowadays seem to be collecting symptoms
like picking apples, when the basket is full you have
CCD. Well, you need to sort through these apples to
weed out the bad apples.  Then maybe you will find
that your bag is not full, and you don’t have CCD,
and you can correct the problem through management
changes.

Best Wishes,
Joe
 



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