> bees are crashing again. heard of a guy who runs bees in north Dakota,
> down
> from 15,000 to 2,000 hives. not good. my buddy has lost all but 15 hives
> of
> a semi load that went to n.d. on the sunflowers. his friends having the
> same
> trouble. he wonders if its spray."

!5,000 to 2000 hives ( and my guess those 2000 will soon follow) usually
means a management issue.
Problems ignored or treatments not on time. varroa control failures . etc.

Those kinds of losses usually are related to several problems in those
hives. Most call those type losses CCD. I do not.

Sunflowers are simply not producing like they used to. Whole loads of bees
have starved in sunflowers around Pierre , S.D. in recent years. Hives have
been reported coming out of sunflowers poorly for a decade now.

You can never trust honey plants to produce today as we did a couple decades
ago.

For several years now we have been hearing of problems with fall hives in N.
Dakota. One problem is before  dumped on honey locations those hives have 
been
set in several pollinations before N. Dakota and exposed to many fungicides
& pesticides. The bees *appear* in good shape and supers are put on. Little
actual testing is being done as far as nosema loads or even varroa loads.
many are  queenless or poor queens from the road.

Many of these beeks are simply *box movers* rather than beekeepers . Of
course like most beekeepers consider their selves beekeeping experts. Being
beekeeping experts if hives start crashing it can NEVER be caused by poor
management so MUST be CCD!

CCD has replaced the weather as being the most common excuse for hive
problems.

When the movement of hives from one pollination to the next takes precedence
over hive health hives crash.

When I get a call and the beekeeper says he treated for varroa before
almonds and then waited till October to treat again its not hard to figure
why the hives crashed.

The famous "Peter Principal" applies to commercial beekeeping. At times all
that is needed is to reduce hive numbers or hire help. Better planning.

You can not today place hive health and pest control in hives as a low 
priority!

bob

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