Hi all
This is from a respected journal

> These stocks come from the same root species, Apis mellifera, mainly the Italian Bee and Carniolan Bee stocks (Tarpy, 2016). This indicates a lower genetic biodiversity in the backyard beekeeping realm, making it easier to generalize, at scale, the species type for this study, of which the vast majority is derived from Apis mellifera stock. This lack of genetic diversity in the U.S. arguably strengthens this paper by reducing the variance in the test population, contributing to more generalizable knowledge. 

* What other species might our backyard beekeepers be using, then? (hint: there are no other species of honey bees in the US)

> Results suggest that more frequent hive inspections are associated with higher over-winter survival rates across most U.S. regions. Unexpectedly, this also includes having relatively more inspections during the winter months in every region.

* Oddly, nowhere in the paper does it explain what an "inspection" entails. One might suppose that simply opening up the hives more frequently increases their survival rate, which is hard to imagine really. BTW, the overall survival rate was 53%, nothing to write home to mom about.

PLB

source Scott, Andrew, et al. "Data mining hive inspections: more frequently inspected honey bee colonies have higher over-winter survival rates." Journal of Apicultural Research 62.5 (2023): 983-991.

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