Tens of thousands of hives crashing, roar of disbelief, super varroa -- with a rush to respond to the crisis. I talked to a lot of beekeepers at the national meetings. I learned, we have resistant varroa, some of the big operators had a rough year, and the almond acreage increased. Allen said today: "So, 50% losses are not particularly abnormal, although they seem large to a non-beekeeper, and an occasional 100% loss is routine." I did not hear from any beekeeper or researcher convincing arguments for a varroa induced crash. One of the high loss beekeepers cited 5 mites per hive drop -- but he was sure that varroa was the culprit because after he 'treated', the hives began to recover. Maybe the recovery was coincidental with the treatment -- I find 5 mites per hive hard to rationalize as the cause of the problem. I've been chatting a lot of folks. No doubt, it was a rough year. But so far, the only 'hard' evidence that I can find are inspection reports of a couple of situations. I trust the folks doing the inspections. They reported that the 'decimated' hives started their decline months before and many went into the winter in poor shape -- substandard stores and weak populations. I can't even get a number on how many of the commercial beekeepers were reporting heavy losses -- it all seems to be indirect information based on a shortage of bees for almonds -- which in part is due to increased acreage plus what appears to be a more or less 'higher' than usual loss of colonies. Given the numbers of colonies needed, that increased loss spread across all most of the beekeepers doesn't have to be a large increase. So, what we need is some hard data. I'm working on a reporting system for bee losses, whether mites, pesticides, bears. Lots of reasons to get this documented. Stay tuned, we will be launching a site for this in the near future. Jerry (We're beta testing it now) :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::