>Who what and where would be the best practices?  Things that work in CA,
 do

> not work in IL,  or IA or.. the list goes on as you know.
>

Here's where I'm coming from.  I speak with beekeepers all over the
country.  In any area there are those who regularly lose a large proportion
of colonies (blaming it on neonics, GMOs, or whatever).  But I invariably
also find beekeepers in the the immediate environment who laugh at  the
others' problems, and who are very successful (attributing it to good
management).

The media, and public policy, are largely driven by the claims of the
former group, ignoring the successes of the latter.

The BMPs that I envision would be pretty simple:

   - Regular monitoring of varroa, and treatment if necessary to maintain
   infestation rates below a set threshold at all times.
   - Regular monitoring for adequate nutrition.  Feeding a proven pollen
   sub and/or syrup if indicated.
   - Regular inspection for disease, and appropriate treatment if indicated.

The list need not go on much longer.  For any area, the minimum fall colony
weight would be determined by asking experienced successful local
beekeepers.  Ditto for determining for specific areas when supplemental
syrup/protein would typically be called for.

In addition, the beekeepers would regularly take and freeze  bee and pollen
samples for possible later confirmation of parasite management, and for
detection of pathogens or pesticides prior to any colony mortalities.

Such a systematic monitoring of well-maintained colonies across the U.S.
landscape could tell us where adopting BMPs was enough to maintain healthy
hives.  It would also provide useful evidence to beekeepers and regulators
of those areas which are indeed killing fields for bees, with archived
samples that could be used to determine the causes leading to colony
mortality in that area.

We currently lack such a clear data set.  I've got a good idea of how it
may turn out, based upon the many anecdotal reports I receive.  I feel that
we would all benefit from such systematic ground truthing.  Similar studies
in Europe have been enlightening.

And the entire system could be run and funded by willing beekeepers, with
all results posted in real time to the Web, a few paid monitors to visit
the various sites,  and a single paid technician to maintain a central data
file and website.
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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