Initial findings of Winter Bee Colony Losses

[dfizer]

Interesting stuff....

http://beeinformed.org/2013/05/winter-loss-survey-2012-2013/

David

[sterling]

It would be interesting to know how many of these operations are using chemicals and how many were chemical free. :?

[Michael Bush]

>It would be interesting to know how many of these operations are using chemicals and how many were chemical free

That information was collected and I suspect as the data is analyzed those numbers will be published.

[BlueBee]

Thanks for the post.  That was interesting. 

I attempted to winter a good many small colonies (4 frames or less) this past winter and the cold did in a lot of them (but not all).  They froze in place after about the 4th cold wave.  I also lost a few larger colonies due to varroa (most of the bees had vamoosed before they froze).   I didn’t treat for mites, I will this year.  The cold was more deadly than varroa in my case.