In case anyone is keeping track, my last post contained an incorrect reference. It should have been: Jones, S. A. (1915). Honeybees: wintering, yields, imports, and exports of honey (No. 325). US Dept. of Agriculture.

The 1918 figures are actually worse:

The census reports indicate for 1910 a total of 3,445,006 colonies, which, if accepted as representing the number on farms, though it is certain that not all such were recorded, may be taken to indicate in the hands of farmers and all others certainly not less than 5,000,000 colonies, more probably 6,000,000, and possibly more. Leading commercial honey authorities estimate the number to be much higher. 

LOSSES.

The losses of bees by disease, principally foulbrood, during the summer, range from practically nothing to almost 10 per cent in some States, though the latter figures are exceptional and may be due to mistaking starvation for disease. The losses to bees in wintering are severe, ranging for the United States as a whole from 10 to almost 15 per cent, and rising in some States to almost 50 per cent in the winter of 1916-17. Details for three years are shown in Table IV. The losses for the winter of 1917-18, owing to an early and exceedingly severe winter, are reported at 18.7 per cent, more than a half greater than the average of the three preceeding winters, and the heaviest in a long period of years.

Jones, S. A. (1918). Honeybees and honey production in the United States (No. 685). US Dept. of Agriculture.

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