OK, while that counts as hearsay (no published data AFAIK), I will accept that some beekeepers in the midwest are happy with their bees and the agriculture around their bees. Bees are subject to a number of stressors. Each environment presents a different "titer" of those stressors. They include: Disease Lack of adequate forage Overcrowding Chemicals that affect their physiology (or outright kill them) Weather Bad beekeeping 2 points, 1, not hearsay, read the crop production reports. They are published on a regular basis. Honey numbers are up. 2, you pointed out some great stressors, but you missed by far the most important one when it comes to this discussion. Weather. Once again here in IL we got shorted, not by pesticides, but by mother nature. 5 weeks of literally constant rain during the honey flow, is going to bump winter losses again. Charles *********************************************** 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