On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:52:39 EDT, Jerry Bromenshenk <[log in to unmask]> wrote: As of Monday, we had 411 surveys from beekeepers across the U.S. (with a few from Canada). Of these beekeepers, 171 or 41.2% listed their bee losses as severe. On the other hand, 46.6% of the beekeepers surveyed said that their losses were low to average. Obviously, it is clear that about half the U.S. beekeepers have not sustained damage or seen CCD. I was curious about what appears to be a discrepancy in your statistics and those reported below by Dr. Diana Cox-Foster, PhD, Professor, Pennsylvania State University in her testimony in Washington today? ""The exact impact of CCD across the United States is difficult to gauge since essential data on the number of bee keepers, number of colonies, and death rates are not measured. A preliminary nationwide survey, initiated last month by the Apiary Inspectors of America, suggests that a 17 % loss of colonies is considered normal, which is astonishing, given that one would be hard pressed to find another agricultural commodity sustaining losses of this magnitude on a regular basis. This same survey also found that approximately one-quarter of responding beekeepers suffered CCD. "" http://agriculture.house.gov/testimony/110/h70329/CoxFoster.pdf I wonder how would a statistician account for a possible bias in your Bee Alert survery respondents sample group in that is someone with no problems less inclined to fill out the survey? If the Apiary Inspectors survery was done by calling randomly from a list of registered beekeepers across the USA the cross sample may be providing a much different picture of what is going on. Either way both numbers seem high from my perspective here in Mn, and from comments here on Bee-L. I'm sure it will become more clear as the summer goes on and state inspectors make their rounds etc. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************