Honey Bee Losses

[bwallace23350]

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/12/honey-bee-colonies-decimated-in-us-according-to-new-survey.html

Beekeepers in the U.S. lost nearly half of their honey bee colonies between April 2015 and April 2016, according to the preliminary results of a survey.

In a blog post earlier this week, the Bee Informed Partnership said that rates of loss in both winter and summer had worsened compared to the year before. Beekeepers lost 44 percent of their colonies, it said.

They blamed it on pesticides, mites, and malnutrition.

[GSF]

I haven't read the article. However, it's common to have a loss coming out of winter. Did they mention how many swarms the remain hives produced? My second winter I had 18 going into winter, loss four. I forget what percentage that was. Those 14 threw 27 swarms - that I know of. This year I've had even more swarms and a lot of honey.

[KeyLargoBees]

That survey is horribly flawed and the info is suspect....it comes out every year with the doom and gloom info and then there is another survey/statistic that comes out that shows a trending upward number of "total hives under managemen"t....how do you reconcile the two sets of statistics?

[splitrock]

That survey is horribly flawed and the info is suspect....it comes out every year with the doom and gloom info and then there is another survey/statistic that comes out that shows a trending upward number of "total hives under managemen"t....how do you reconcile the two sets of statistics?

They have losses, then they build up off what is left.

I deal with the largest bee people in the world,  and they had severe losses this past winter, thousands of hives. BUT, as I was told a while back, they were working on building them back up,  and they did........ I will be picking up dozens of nucs from them tomorrow. :-)

[GSF]

I was told that one of the producers in s. Montgomery county lost a lot of hives this winter - too warm? It "delayed" his sales. He also built back up.

[bwallace23350]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-off-the-bee-pocalypse-u-s-honeybee-colonies-hit-a-20-year-high/

This is confusing. The number of hives are up as of last year. I talked with a big beekeeper around here, who also has helped me a lot, and he did not see anything unusual except he caught more black bee swarms last year.