>I was looking for data, since I'm interested in perhaps figuring out what
>the culprit was. What actual hard data did you or others have on mite
>levels, and at what time points?
all hives were treated end of Aug-Sep 15. apiguard did mite wash, 2 or less mites in all hives
another beek#1 treated Aug with MAQS, then early Oct, ending late Oct with apiguard. he lost no hives while a beek#3 just around the corner who was part of BIP testing treated earlier, had one left out of 40. If I remember correctly Bip said he had one high virus but got the info in Jan.
washing the dead bees showed a mite count so high it wasn't worth counting in mult hives, in mult apiaries, for Beek1, and beek#2, Bvs test also said high mite counts.
>
> >the collapsed colonies had no signs of mite depredation.
>Are you saying that you did not see fecal deposits in the cells at the
>center of what had been the clusters?
all dead outs had plenty of fecal deposits in the dead outs. mine and beek#2 also. also contrary to what Cornell and the head bee inspector suggested, all hives that were checked had plenty of pollen available. Cornell suggested poor goldenrod pollen production.
> >Most had just vanished, with some dead in a heap in the bottom of the
> hive.
>
The opinion of most of the beeks that discussed the problem locally, I checked one large yard(untreated) in the middle of my area and saw the same as above, hives dead no piles of dead bees in front of the hives, few dead bees in the hives. We attributed this to being the mite bombs that took out the rest of us.
>Did anyone check the frozen bees for prevalence of nosema. Or for the
>Serratia that Burritt reported?
I sent bees that were crashing to BVS for testing, low or no virus's no nosema, low bee weight because the kept trying to raise new bees to replace dying bees.
>
> >The bees were disappearing and nobody ever figured out why.
being on the receiving end of the mite bombs, I had plenty of piles of dead bees.
I have deleted most of the emails and data so the above is from memory. Other facts that came to light after, the Apple orchard down the street the next spring was looking for 500 hives for pollination, a friend of mine asked him why, the previous years bee keeper lost all of his bees. during the pollination season, the same friend who lives next to the orchard kept finding swarms in all of his trees. When we treated them we put sticky boards in the hives and there was no way to count all of the mites on the board after 2 days.
The other commercial stationary beek that has a couple of hundred hives around the area, lost all but one, checked with him and he was late pulling honey and didn't treat for mites.
Now on the other hand, I have 4 yards in a different area with four other beeks, all treated for mites around the same time, minimal loss of hives. HMMM
another Beek north of me, treated all of her hives in Sept, tested low mite counts, the commercial beek came in the middle of the day and picked up his hives and left bees hanging in the trees. I suggested she test for mites, found high mite counts, she ended up treating again and lost normal amount of bees.
as a side note the previous fall and winter was warm by our standards, and the year of the mite bombs was also warmer later than normal, allowing the crashing hives some place to go, everyone else's hives. But on the bright side, many of the treatment free are now treating.
mike Syracuse land of the white stuff still on the ground.
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