> Now, I will admit that I freely tell the press, the bigger issue in
> US, much of  the world, is not the loss of colonies per se but loss
> of numbers of  beekeepers.

I did an analysis a decade back that pinned the US decline on economics.

At that time, the US$ was very strong and the Canadian dollar was weak,
so the Canadian honey prices to the beekeeper were almost 1.5 times what
US beekeepers got.

As a result we saw greater declines in the US beekeeper numbers than in
Canada.

In Canada, the decline in beekeeper numbers was largely due to border
closure and the difficulty in obtaining and maintaining bee stocks
reliably and obtaining replacement stock cheaply, not mites.  In the US,
it was very low prices in US dollars.

Mites did not help make things easier in either country, but with
adequate returns, the added cost burden can be borne.  This has been
proven time and again.

Changing social attitudes towards bees and agriculture and 'dirty' work
and encroachment of populated areas on former bee pasture were added
factors, but the big one is economics.

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