This just out:

> This study records the fourth consecutive year of high winter losses in managed honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in the USA. Over the winter of 2009-2010, US beekeepers responding to this survey lost an average of 42.2% of their colonies, for a total loss of 34.4%. Commercial beekeepers (those operating more than 500 colonies) experienced lower total losses as compared to sideline and backyard beekeepers. Similarly, operations that maintained colonies in more than one state and operations that pollinated almond orchards over the survey period had lower total losses than operations either managing colonies in one state exclusively or those not pollinating almonds.

> For a second consecutive year, beekeepers that used at least part of their operation for almond pollination had significantly lower total losses than their non-almond pollinating counterparts. Furthermore, this survey found that operations that managed colonies in more than one state had lower losses than those that did not. While we were unable to find relationships between the numbers of times colonies were moved the previous year and total or average colony losses, all told our data do not support the hypothesis that moving colonies causes increased mortality. If transporting colonies does indeed have negative effects on colony health, these data suggests that these effects can be mitigated by beekeeper management.

A survey of managed honey bee colony losses in the USA, fall 2009 to winter 2010
Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Jerry Hayes Jr., Robyn M Underwood, Dewey Caron, and Jeffery Pettis
Journal of Apicultural Research 50(1): 1-10 (2011) © IBRA 2011

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm