>Are you suggesting the hives become non-viable suddenly, or just suddenly
look a lot smaller.

What I'm curious about is whether beekeepers noticed whether it was common
for the best honey producers to dwindle more in late summer than the
moderate honey producers.  It appears to me that this is often the case
these days.  I'm curious as to how much it has to do with varroa.  So I'm
trying to get background information as to whether it tended to happen
prior to varroa.  I apologize if I was unclear.

>We typically lost those hives in late fall or winter, but it is normal for
> us to see hives drop from huge summer populations to smaller clusters quite
> quickly in fall.
>

We have more time post our main flow until winter than you do in Canada.
 To be more specific, I'm wondering about the population drop prior to the
normal fall downsizing that takes place when the field bees fly off to die
just prior to the formation of the winter cluster.  This commonly happens
in my area in November, but suspect that you would see it in October.

So the period of time that I am interested in is late summer, after the
main flow, but prior to normal population downsizing in late fall.

>What about brood area?

This would most likely be the main factor.  I've only been able to find
limited actual data on brood area at that time--i.e., Lloyd Harris's
population structures.  There are a few potential factors involved:
1.  Plugging of the broodnest during the flow, resulting in lack of
egglaying space.  This would be expected if colonies plugged out.
2.  Poor nutrition in the pollen from some flows (alfalfa, white box),
leading to reduced brood rearing.
3.  Queen fatigue after a major population buildup.
4.  Others?

What I'm wondering is whether the best honey producers typically fare worse
than moderate honey producers, in the month after the main flow, in the
absence of varroa.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm