>
> >Maybe Randy will comment. I personally never hear of robbing being an
> issue
> in fall California holding yards *when* hives are heavy with feed. Only my
> experience. Randy might have seen a different scenario.
>

Bob, I agree with you on robbing being extremely variable, and may not occur
in my holding yards (or it may be frantic).  After varroa/DWV kills,
colonies sit full of honey.  Ditto with what I suspect might be CCD kills in
my operation (Western form of CCD)--lots of honey.  That is why I said last
week that I wish that I'd paid more attention to the lack of robbing
issue--it simply didn't seem unusual to me, since I often (as you do) see
deadouts or collapsed colonies sitting there full of honey (colonies with a
queen and handful of bees can sometimes avoid being robbed out for months).

However, I also trust the observations of those experienced beekeepers and
researchers who say that they are seeing an unusual phenomenon.  And Bob,
what they are seeing is clearly not pesticide kill.  Ditto with my losses.

Not that there are not clear pesticide kills happening--this is a long-term
problem.  But different from CCD.

Randy Oliver

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