Hi all
I am trying to get a sense of how serious the current dieback is. Is it confined to the north or northeast? 

To recap, over 2/3 of my colonies are already gone. Others report 75% to 100% loss. I had an assortment of package bee colonies, commercial queened colonies, naturally queened colonies, and collected feral colonies. All the package colonies are gone, as well as the feral ones. There is definitely a local effect, with the home yard suffering double the loss of the outyard. 

The colonies received MAQs in June, July and August. There was never any overt signs of PMS, DWV, etc. I did have one colony sampled by BIP, and that one had above average mite level (5%) and DWV through the roof (740 billion copies). Ironically, that colony was still alive in January. 

How are others faring?

PLB

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