>Would you not describe losses in recent years as disastrous?

That's a trick question.  It's too vague and ambiguous to give a truthful answer.

Yes and no.  Yes, losses have been disastrous for a limited number of beekeepers.  No, losses have not been disastrous for the beekeeping industry.

30% losses are manageable.  If you have really low losses, the beekeeper ends up with too many bees the next spring and they end up hanging in trees.  

If you started seeing multiple consecutive years of 75%+ losses, then we would start talking about disastrous losses.

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