Mr. Borst,
"As you can easily see, their numbers indicate an increase of almost one million colonies from 2002 to 2012, and the current level is higher than pre-varroa. So much for the bee apocalypse?"
FYI - I agree with your assessment of the bee apocalypse. However, the media frenzy of CCD stories and bees dying off has helped bee keepers and made the public more aware of the honey bees and maybe a little more tolerant of dutch white clover and dandelions growing in their yards (well at least their back yard which is not visible from the street).
In Illinois, a recent high water mark for colonies and beekeepers was 1988. A big decline took place in 1996 and we are not yet back up to the level beekeeping was back then.
However, back in the 1920s, the number of colonies were much, much higher. I did find a 1926-1927 Illinois Dept of Agriculture annual report which had been scanned in and archived to Google Books.
In 1926 there were 72,602 colonies inspected which were spread across 5,581 apiary locations.
A 1927 report showed 74,447 colonies spread across 6,827 apiary locations were inspected.
Please note the word inspected. They only included counts for the number of colonies inspected. No mention of how many registered bee keepers or total number of colonies which were not inspected or if they did in fact inspect every colony in existence back then.
The report also indicated there were 50 apiary inspectors which did inspections (now there are 7 apiary inspector positions) for the 102 counties in the State of Illinois.
On the ISBA website, we have counts going back to 1988 at the below link.
http://www.ilsba.com/idoa-reports.html
The FY2004 reports contains the stats going back to 1988 and from what I am told this is the year the Varroa Destructor mite presence reached Illinois. There were at least 37,025 managed colonies in Illinois in 1988. By 1996 the total number of managed colonies reported was at 16,896.
In the FY2015 report there were 24,690 colonies reported.
In 1988, there were 2,966 registered bee keepers with 37,025 colonies spread across 4,649 apiary locations.
In 1996 there were 1,515 registered bee keepers with 16,865 colonies spread across 2,506 apiary locations.
In 2015, there were 3,114 registered bee keepers with 24,690 colonies spread across 4,517 apiary locations.
The has been a dip and a climb since 1988. The low water mark for the number of colonies was in 1996.
This indicates to me (pure speculation) is about 50% of the bee keepers got out of bee keeping by 1996, because all the numbers were almost 50% down from 1988 (number of beekeepers, number of colonies and number of apiary locations). I was not a bee keeper back then, but a friend of mine who has been keeping bees since 1976 and another who started in 1984, said bee keeping got a lot harder in 1988 and beyond after the Varroa Destructor mite established it's presence and has become more prevalent and common place every year since.
In 2015, Illinois surpassed the previous recent high water mark in the number of bee keepers, but there is still a long way to go to get back up the 37k plus in the number of colonies. The number of colonies in Illinois for 2015 was still 34% less (12,335 colonies less) than what was reported in 1988.
What does all this mean?
Really do not know except the Varroa Destructor mite is still considered here to be the single biggest major threat and disease vector affecting the honey bee. It is interesting to note the number of colonies have been on the rise since the low water mark of 1996 and there was not any notable or sizable decrease in colonies since 1996 until 2006-2007.
Another factor to consider: Since honey bees are considered livestock under Illinois and Federal law, maybe when the villages, towns and cities enacted ordinances to prohibit raising livestock (cattle, hogs, sheep and goats) within their jurisdictions, it put a crimp and a damper on bee keeping as well. Now amendments to existing ordinances need to be enacted to allow beekeeping and make in legal in a lot of the municipal jurisdictions.
A bee keeper with a colony in an illegal location is not likely to request it be inspected.
Also, not all bee keepers in Illinois are registered with the Dept of Agriculture, even though there is a possible $250 fine for not registering as a beekeeper in the State of Illinois. An unregistered bee keeper in the boonies is not likely to have their colonies inspected. The Illinois Dept of Ag would rather register the illegal bee keeper than impose a fine as the overall intent of the law in Illinois governing bee keeping is to protect bee keeping in Illinois.
In respect to Charlie Linders' comment about a possible decline of interest in bee keeping and an oversupply of packages. We are not seeing here, at least not at this time. The same goes for phone calls and emails of people asking where they can get packages, because their bees have succumbed during the winter.
Our annual 5 week Intro to Bee Keeping course continues to reach full enrollment not long after the online registration is activated on the first working day of January each year. The first class session starts this Thursday night (02/25/16). The class size is limited to 42 to 45 attendees, mainly due to the size limitation of the largest room available at the local University of Illinois Extension office where it is conducted. So for at least this year, we are not experiencing a decline in interest. I have not checked with other local associations in Illinois to confirm it. Just going on the feedback I have received to this point which indicates the interest is still present.
Since this is fly over country we are probably just behind the times, both on the increase and decrease side of things.
Respectfully,
Steve Petrilli, Central Illinois
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