Hello Allen & All,
I noticed on your page on unwrapping you only lost 12 hives out of 112 in
the spring of 2000. These are the losses many of us saw back in those days.
A close look at most of those twelve I suspect ( as I look very carefully at
my deadouts) would have shown you ( or myself) a reason for their poor
survival.

I have a group of test hives I am spending a huge amount of time looking at.
I found several hives last week in which the bee population has dropped to
below the number of bees it takes to survive our winter. I suspect the
problem involves low production of winter bees last fall. I am removing
those tomorrow from the test. I want to see if I can bring all the hives
through the winter in the test.

My friends looking over my shoulder are thinking if Bob is successful then
PPB *is* a factor in winter loss today.

The point of my study is to see if most ( not all certainly!) winter loss
can be explained simply by beekeepers not taking the time to prepare hives
correctly. There is a point in commercial beekeeping when the labor cost
does not justify the time involved. However quite an investment is involved
in winter preparation now. Feed, meds, mite treatments, labor etc.. So much
that some beekeepers are returning to depopulating hives and buying packages
in spring. Research has shown that overwintering has the edge (if losses are
low) but the popularity of using package bees is growing again *if* the can
be obtained early enough.

The consensus at our bee meeting yesterday was I was going to kill bees in
Missouri if I wrapped bees. The daytime *high* temps now are in the lower
fifties and next week will be in the forties and will continue down for the
next three months. None are wrapped yet. What does the list say? Will there
be no benefit to my wrapping. We see zero weather and at time wind chills in
the -10 to -20's F. and have seen (years gone past) actual temps in the -25
F. range for a period of time at night with slightly below zero in the day
with wind chills as high as -80 F.

As far as the high temps (based on weather history) our last high temp of
60F. and above is gone till March.

bob

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