> I just received a copy of a letter from the Deputy Chief Veterinary
> Officer of Canada, Dr. Francine Lord in which she says that
> unofficial reports of winterkill in  Canada are 50 percent.

That is not too far off my personal loss here, depending on what we
consider to be lost.  If we discount the hives too weak to be split or
requiring boosting in May as lost, that may be conservative.

As for Randy's reports, interesting as they may be, I think there would
be a representative fallacy in considering them more than anecdotal.

I my experience, there are several kinds of winter loss.

1.) Principally, there is what we might call attrition: the normal loss
due to queen failure, clusters getting away from feed and other
"accidents".  These are fairly evenly distributed over the entire
geography and entire population.

2.) Catastrophic loss.  This is total loss and tends to occur somewhat
randomly and sometimes in clusters . In any particular outfit, it may be
predictable from observing fall bees, and I have done so several times
both in other outfits and once in my own.

Total losses are calculated by combining these various sorts of
loss, but they are very different in distribution and predictability
statistically and geographically.

Using a relatively small sample that does not contain any catastrophic
losses can lead to valid (for the sample), but unrepresentative (for the
whole) conclusions.

             ***********************************************
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