>There's a saying that beekeepers spend 90% of their time on 10% of the hives.

While the exact ratio may not hold up I do spend a lot more time on colonys that are having problems of whatever description. A quick look at a colony that is thriving is all it takes. Give it what it needs and move on with a good feeling. Problems are another situation all together. My experience is that problems ignored often spread and sometimes quickly. Of greater importance then the saving of a single colony (admittedly to my karma bound brain doing what I can to help is inherent) is identifying and mitigating the problem. In Randy's recent article on extended release OA he discusses those "danged outliers". I assure you my language is not nearly so polite, especially when alone in the bee yard. Outliers not only foul-up your statistics but they often reveal that what you thought you knew ain't necessarily so. Models and practices work except when they don't. Newtonian physics will do just fine in almost all situations but Einstein proved that they were not correct and now his theories are not holding up to quantum theory. 

Until we can explain the cause of the outlier we really don't know what is going on. It may not be important, just noise, but then again you may learn something. My battle with a single colony that I have not been able to control the mite count this fall is a perfect point. If I had not noticed it would surly die over the winter and just be chalked up to normal loss. A great colony that made 230# and a possible breeder that got all the care and treatments of the rest but something went wrong. 

Saving a small cluster is worth it when it works and it does a lot of the time. First step is to determine why it is small. If you can rule out disease, uncontrolled mites, or a failing queen it has a high chance of returning to vigor. Finding out what is causing and how to deal with the few colonys that experience late influx will make any operation more successful. Fixing the problems of 10% of your colonys will be time well spent.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA 

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