Hello Peter,
I was involved with my colleagues across Canada when the survey was designed. As you are aware the beekeeping industry profile varies from province to province. The range is so wide in terms  of how many colonies registered by beekeepers and how many beekeepers in each province. 
Each province decided the cut off point for what is considered viable side liners and commercial beekeepers. This means the ones included in the survey will represent over 85% of the colonies in the province. For example, in Alberta I used 400 colonies and above to survey and report their data. These guys that owned 400 hives or more represented over 92.5% of the 310000 bee colonies in Alberta. The second group that represented the rest of the beekeepers had on average about 4 colonies per person. It is quite interesting to see this Bimodal distribution of bee colonies across the country.
This type of distribution is common in agriculture. It is called 80- 20. This means 80% of the stock is owned by 20% of the stockholders that are considered commercial. When we consulted with an epidemiologist. He supported the survey design. On the side I used to collect data from the ones owned less than 400 colonies. I added them to my stats for comparison to see if they make a difference. it did not really make a difference.
By the I used to get questions like, my neighbour lost 100% of his bees. How come the Provincial average is 20% winter loss. My question to the person how many hives you neighbour has? Oh well 😔 20 hives. Good that really would not make much of a dent in reported 310000 hives. I hope this helps to explain some of these reported statistics. 
Kind regards
Medhat Nasr Formal Alberta Provincial Apiculturist.Edmonton Canada 


   
  

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