> People speculated that the drought caused the pollen to not have enough protein causing poor bees. I checked with Scott at Cornell, he said there would be no quality problem, but could be a quantity problem

Hi Wildbranch!

I am in agreement with this. Weather conditions likely affect quantity but not quality. Viable pollen of any sort is highly nutritious. Plus, we got good rains in August, so knotweed and goldenrod were near normal bloom. 

I think too little attention is being paid to the new study out of Wisconsin:

We report bacterial infection in live adult worker and drone honey bees found immobilized
and separated from active hive members. We also isolated this bacterium from dead bees
obtained from 24 of 33 winterkilled hives. ... We linked this infection to
wintertime failure of hives in western Wisconsin, but did not establish causation of hive failure
to this bacterium.

If you look at the picture, there are piles of "immobilized living and dead bees" in the corners of the inner cover.

Sepsis and Hemocyte Loss in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) Infected with Serratia marcescens Strain Sicaria
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167752

not conclusive, but worrisome

PLB

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