> Considering the sources I'm wondering if a possible cause of these high loss rates might be from management practices. 

Hi all

Of course, it's tempting to try to tease out cause and effect from these numbers. In fact, that is BeeInformed's avowed purpose. And was even thinking of drawing a line from Medhat Nasr's excellent work and the success of beekeeping in his region. But that would imply that Ontario's failures were caused by the operators there, and I don't believe that's true. 

Ontario has competent beekeepers and the Guelph lab is without a doubt an exemplar of practical research and involvement with the beekeeping community. On the other hand, we have nothing like that here in NYS, which borders Ontario. Therefore, I would state that the map of bee losses is showing climate effects. 

I would couple this, however, with the effectiveness of varroa control. In the Northeast, where losses were high, a lot of people depend on late flows for a honey crop. If the flow is over in August, that gives an opportunity to get the honey off and bear down on the mites, whereas if the hives are all supered up in August, varroa control is harder to achieve at that point.

PLB

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