One problem among many I have with such surveys is that I don't see definitions. What is a colony? Is a beekeeper the same as another beekeeper?
There are many reasons people run bees and their goals and acceptable losses will vary. Pollination can be hard on bees, but economically rewarding to the beekeeper. When I produced large volumes of comb, I knew my winter losses would be higher on those colonies. Other manipulations like raising queens may affect the condition of colonies.
I confess I have not studied these US surveys or even read all the way through, but in my experience, most surveys I've seen presuppose a possible set of answers and in some cases the question is the answer.
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