"So far as I can see, there is no effort to correct for reporting bias, no effort to create a valid cross section. "

I believe the problems are as deep and even deeper than you mentioned.  There is not a way to verify the respondents are bee keepers, much less any verification of the number of colonies they state they had or lost.     Someone with an agenda could, with a focused effort provide incorrect data to produce a desired skewed conclusion or result.

BIP would need to cross match with all the States which register and perform inspections in an effort to verify a person is a bee keeper.    Not a sure fire way, but would help clean the data up a bit.

When I can respond to a BIP survey and state I had XXX colonies and lost YYY of them without any verification whatsoever, I view the BIP data and results with a grain a salt...   

I prefer to get information from our local Apiary Inspector for our area (and other experienced bee keepers) as to what is actually being encountered in the field.    Last year and early this year,  it was starvation was the cause.    It was a matter of a bee keeper being too frugal to feed the bees or erroneously thinking they had sufficient food stores when they did not.

I contacted BIP last year about this and after a few months, they responded with some verbiage they had a mathematical formula which adjusted the results and that they expected the respondents to be honest in their data they submit.     I suspect most are honest, but it does not take many bad apples to ruin the entire bushel.

Steve Petrilli

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