> I am confused about the take-home messages regarding USA winter bee hive
> survival as calculated by the BeeInformed survey.  Maybe others on the list
> are too, so...I am sharing why I'm puzzled to see if anyone can clear some
> of this up:
>

When I wrote to Karen at BeeInformed I asked about the data from the
2011-2012 results.

There are two figures- one is total colonies, from which comes the 30%
figure. The other is average loss per beekeeper, whence comes the 45%
figure.

Statistics can distort any picture, especially when you have a small number
of large operations who do well but are averaged with a large number of
small operations who do poorly. The data that I collected with my small
group of local beekeepers demonstrated that- with one large scale beekeeper
(50 hives) compared to 10  who only had one or two hives (largest had 7).
The 50 colony operation had 15% loss while the rest ran about 40% (close to
the national results per beekeeper).

So you have 10 or so at a high number(40%) but only one at a low number
(15%), then the average loss per beekeeper was only slightly less than the
10  by themselves.

However, when you add all colonies, the loss drops dramatically as now the
50 overwhelms the smaller guys. That dropped the loss from 40% (per
beekeeper) down to less than 30% (all colonies).

I also thought that there are many things that happen during a year so the
actual losses and gains are not adequately recorded. But based on the
confusion even this simple survey generated here, to try and add those
in-year changes would mush it into complete confusion.

I look at all those changes to be a part of "normal" beekeeping. Call them
"constant practices" that happen during every year and would average out
over a large base of beekeepers and colonies over several years.

What does come from the survey is a comparison over a time span of a fairly
consistent body of beekeepers. Some may do well one year and, in other
years may not. What is looked at is the trend of the group from year to
year. Randy note that the trend is fairly well tied to the severity of the
winter.

What I also took away from the survey is that we have not changed much over
the life of the survey. Losses among the larger operations are probably in
the 20-25% average range, which means some will be lower and some higher.
So for every 50% kill you get two15% to balance them out. Which means that
more commercial beekeepers are successful than not and we might all learn
from them, as Randy has many times pointed out.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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