To Grant and all:
I am in hopes that I will see many of you in Reno in the coming week.   Wish I could make it down to Fresno as it looks like a great meeting as well!   If you see someone hobbling around with a horrible limp in a fedora it will most likely be me, not John Skinner!  (He doesn’t limp.)  Come up and we will share a few moments or hopefully  longer in  talk about  the bees.

As usual I have enjoyed reading many of the posts here this past year and have a difficult time keeping up with all things of bee-work and cannot respond often times, as much as  I would like.  I will take a few moments however during this long winter evening when I might be able to put together a post on something that has struck a cord.

My friend Grant has asked if others are seeing this dwindling of bees that is sometimes referred to, mistakenly of course, as CCD.    I have observed this in 6 to 10 yards this year, where in most cases I have requeened with queens purchased and not produced of my own labors.   For years I have maintained that the best queens I have are those reared at home and by the design and specific care of my own  or perhaps "their own" bees.   This past year I purchased 50 queens to bring in some new stock, as we do most years and it was an absolute disaster.   In my estimation 70 % of those purchased queens were the short term occupants of boxes now sitting idle in my home yard, awaiting rebuilding in the spring.   In  the last 15 years I have seen a dramatic drop in the quality of the queens that I have purchased, however, and with good note, the survivors usually  do quite well and provide me with some diversity in alleles to hopefully maintain a minimum of genetic diversity.  
There are also other variables at work as well, that would require a book to respond to in
good detail and definition.    I have friends diligently at work with other problems in nature, other species,  that all concur with the effects that we see today with the dwindling of many species being a result of climate change, habitat depletion and the lack of biodiversity in our every day world.  Host species bloom earlier and in different intensities due to changing rainfall patterns and unusual and erratic temperatures.    Pesticides and changes in levels of CO2,  greenhouse gases and  a dramatic change in the overall mix of what life is exposed to over a very short time in natures terms, due to our human interventions.   Sometimes I think the more we attempt to better things the worse they end up in the “Soup” or perhaps the “Stew of Life”.
Which brings me to the point of the matter and that is that we need better diversity in all things from genetics to forage for our stocks of bees, butterflies, moths, bats and all things considered. I am not particularly hopeful of this changing to favor those who have no money to spend or voices to raise their issues.  We humans tend to think in a very self-centered manner and mainly in very short time frames.
Grant, in regard to your question regarding re-queening....  I have recommended for many years the introduction of a new queen at the end of the honey flow.  If you are located from the middle section of the country down, where we have two or more distinct honey flows (Missouri, Kansas, etc)  this gives time for the screw-ups, that we will always make and for reasons of nature, the queens really do go crazy trying to introduce their progeny into the hive at a time when it is absolutely vital to the raising of “winter bees”.   This helps to produce healthier hives ready to winter.  
Summer replacement is far better than re-queening in the spring when the nature of the business is to prepare for the honey flow.   One mistake and that unit is no longer a production unit for this season. Two days devoid of egg production and you are short 3,000 or more foraging workers. So, yes by all means, re-queen after the spring honey flow and feed during the dearth to stimulate brood rearing.   Many years we do not have a fall honey flow at all and with August stimulative feeding we are way ahead of the curve in the event of a fall failure in nectar flow.
As you mentioned sometimes these failing colonies are right next to those that are thriving.   I personally believe that healthy hives with strong queens and good pheromones tend to attract bees from those with a poor or failing queen and those weakened for whatever reason tend to just give up or dwindle down to a few bees and a sorry excuse for a queen.
The more bees that you run the more you will find that you need to keep all your bees at an optimum level.    There is no point nursing along dinks or intensive care recipients and from a genetic standpoint you are not doing the bees a favor.

The success of next years honey collection depends upon what is done from the very moment the bees stop collecting this years nectar.  So read a lot of good books this winter, ………come to the annual meetings and as my great friend Bob H.  says: stay informed………, as much as you desire to care for your bees.  And by all means, for here at least, keep it civil!
A prosperous year to all, 
Tim

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