Hello Everyone,
 
This year my winter losses are much higher than what I normally experience.  I have not had losses like this since 1999.  I have pretty much attributed it to a couple of factors with mites being the greatest contributor.  What puzzles me though is the location of the losses.  One yard had 60% and another around 75% with the survivors not all that strong.  Two other locations had less than 10% loss and the colonies were very strong, some requiring mid-March feeding.  All of the deadouts were found full of honey and small clusters.  The colonies were strong going into winter.  I did vary my mite treatments, but did so at each location.  I have not really been able to say one treatment was the cause.  Three of the locations are within 6 miles of each other and the last is about 18 miles away. One that had 100% survival is completely exposed to harsh winter conditions as it is in the middle of an orchard on top of a hill sitting in the middle of 4 open acres.
 
One colony in particular has me really baffled.  In early June a sugar roll showed a very high mite count (~90).  The colony was extremely strong and there was a terrific honey flow on.  I decided to let it alone for a few weeks until the flow was slowing down.  A few weeks later the colony was knocked over, scattering all the supers with the aggravated bees chasing away the farmer on the tractor working the in field directly in front of the colony.  I was there within an hour and decided it was a good time to take off the honey.  I brushed the bees off the frames in front of the colony.  I sprayed the bees with sucrocide as they were marching back in.  A few weeks later I returned and treated with Apistan.  It survived the winter and is boiling with bees and will need to be split in a week or so to avoid swarming.  The queen is still the original from 2004, so there was really no complete shutdown of brood rearing to coincide with treatment.  Based on the very high mite count during the sugar roll this colony should not have made it (or that’s what I have been told.)
 
So, I have high losses in colonies that had “treatable levels” of mites.  I have one colony that should have crashed from mite load but is thriving.  The losses are geographic specific and not tied to a particular treatment failure.  
 
About the only thing I can draw from all this is for best results, one should knock their hives over in early summer and then apply a soft mite treatment. J 
 
I feel the need to quote Pooh Bear.  “When it comes to bees you just don’t know.”
 
Ron
 
Ron Bogansky
Eastern Pennsylvania
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