a snip from Janet L. Wilson followed by > my comment...

They cited the effects of moving the bees, agri-spray exposure, and the practice of prophylactic application of miticides, foulbrood meds and fumagillin as contributors (the prophylactic meds were used to reduce labour costs). They also felt that mobile bees often struggle to find adequate nutrition, leading to reduced disease/pest resistance in the bees, and to lack of vigour.

> First off as in all surveys the degree of accuracy and reliability of the results is suspect.  Hang around a bunch of sociology graduate students and pretty quickly you will find out exactly how hard creating a survey really is. But as the saying goes... it is, what it is!

True hobbyist (at least according to one of my beekeeping friends in Austin) show remarkable ability in creating new ways to kill a perfectly good hive.  I see this here in new novice (sometimes not novice) students who come to the bee lab. Rough estimate here is that the new student would kill 25% of all hives used in their experiment. None of these experiments last more than 3 months so a yearly rate is anyone best guess.

After about two years the new beekeepers kind of either get it together or quit. Some past experience in rearing chickens, cows, or any farm livestock seems to give a novice beekeeper better than even odds they will succeed.  

Commercial beekeepers can run the gamut in regards to numbers, experience and expertise. Hard to establish a pattern for them but without question Janet's little snip above capture some of their problems.  I have done a bit of commercial sized consulting in the past and I would also suggest some queens obtained from commercial queen breeders is imho very fragile and will collapse at the first stressor they confront.

Some commercial folks tell me they loose no hives in transport... but this is prima facia evidence for me not to believe much else they might say. I suspect fungicides are a large problem in the commercial beekeeping world.

 
Gene in Central Texas...

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html