Fwd: BEE-L Digest - 4 Jan 2017 to 5 Jan 2017 (#2017-6)

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From: "BEE-L automatic digest system" <LIST...@COMMUNITY.LSOFT.COM>
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Sent: Thursday, January 5, 2017 11:04:27 PM
Subject: BEE-L Digest - 4 Jan 2017 to 5 Jan 2017 (#2017-6)

There are 12 messages totaling 425 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

1. Reports of high losses (7)
2. Quotes
3. Reports of High Bee Losses on east coast
4. East coast losses
5. Beekeeping questions begging for practical research
6. East Coast Losses

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 13:13:34 +0000
From: kirk jones <zydeco...@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Reports of high losses

Mite management is a year around focus for us. Basically every trip to the beeyards other than moving them involves some type of mite control. Hard and soft, depending on the time of year. Even then, some yards are always a bit beat up with mites, viruses, and their ilk We plan on some hives getting beat up, as no matter what we do, we can't keep up with them 100% all of the time. Those bees leave the northern latitudes for southern ones to immediately enjoy some natural pollen flow, further mite reductions with controls, pollen patties with fumidil, and light syrup with hbh or prohealth. Most recover, but otherwise we would probably lose 12% quite quickly if left in our cold northern climate. Then we would be lucky to have only 25% losses by spring if we didn't move south by November.

I'm amazed at how cavalier some beeks are in regards to mite control. Even if mite rolls are low we still treat. The next hatch is coming along with more mites. I tell all beeks or wanabees that never let your guard down in regards to mite control if you want to enjoy success. I would by and large measure success by healthy bees, decent honey production, strong pollinators, and big populations to make splits.


 Kirk Jones

Sleeping Bear Farms   beekeepers making honey...
St. Ambrose Meadery/Winery- sister business of Sleeping Bear
      

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 09:59:55 -0500
From: Aaron Morris <aaronq...@gmail.com>
Subject: Quotes

Jerry's original post withe the subject header "Reports of High Bee Losses
on east coast" asked, "I'm hearing reports of 70% colony losses in some
parts of east coast. What are others hearing? Obviously can't be CCD,
Dennis has told us it's gone."

There have been 14 responses to Jerry's post, over half of which quoted
Jerry's original query. THE SUBJECT HEADER IS SUFFICIENT!

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 09:12:11 -0500
From: Richard Reid <rke...@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Reports of High Bee Losses on east coast

>
> I'm hearing reports of 70% colony losses in some parts of east coast. What are others hearing? Obviously can't be CCD, Dennis has told us it's gone.
>

I ran about 80 production hives and between 100 and 150 nucs this past year, up about 15% from previous year. I’ve kept bees 32 of the last 44 years. There are no commercial beekeepers in our part of the state, and only a few hobbyists and one sideliner nuc producer in range of my yards.

I lost 15% of production colonies in Oct and Nov, earlier than normal. No losses since. My losses usually come in Dec, Jan, and Feb. I’ve lost 7% of the nucs, but some of that was queen problems.

We are coming off of what I would call a crappy year. Mild winter, early spring, rain throughout May during our main flow and my queen rearing. They did make some honey from rains through the summer. My honey crop was about half of normal and I had mating problems with my spring queens.

No treatments.


Richard Reid

Mountains of SW VA at 2,200 feet
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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 09:33:34 -0500
From: jjackgrimshaw <jjackg...@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: East coast losses

Difficult season last year in N Central CT.     The cliche "perfect storm" comes to mind.Late start to spring flow.Maples at least 3 wks late.Late hard frost. All Prunus sp blooms killed.Poor apple crop.No locust bloom at all.Rapid build up as temps warmed but swarming was difficult to control.Compressed spring flow  due to early summer temps. Many plants blooming out of sequence.Honey yields off 40%.Dry. Dry. Dry.   Severe to excessive drought conditions over the whole region led to poor fall flow. Again,fall yield off  about 40%.The yards on clay soils near the river weren't too bad but higher elevation sandy soils were terrible and needed feedWorking hives after June became unpleasant  due to robbing like I've never seen before.Weak hives robbed out in days during fall flow,leading,I'm sure,to increased mite loads in remaining hives. More signs of PMS than usual.High mite counts in Sept.and above normal fall crashes in dry yards.I haven't popped any tops during warm spells but some hives show no flght activity.Plenty of stores going into winter but I'm concerned about the effect of drought on pollen quantity/ quality.I'm not very optimistic about what the spring will bring and expect higher losses.Fingers crossed


Jack

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 10:02:37 -0500
From: Peter Loring Borst <peterl...@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Reports of high losses

> I'm amazed at how cavalier some beeks are in regards to mite control. Even if mite rolls are low we still treat. The next hatch is coming along with more mites.

I am amazed how many assume that losses can be prevented simply by following directions. I applied formic (MAQs) to my 20 colonies on 3 occasions this year. The colonies made a generous honey crop despite the severe drought and looked good in October. Half of the are already gone, some with dead bees on the bottom board, some with no bees at all.

PLB

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 16:11:56 +0000
From: Richard Cryberg <rcry...@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Reports of high losses

" I applied formic (MAQs) to my 20 colonies on 3 occasions this year. "

Does anyone who relies mainly on MAQS see real low winter hive deaths? The reason I ask is there is no question MAQS controls mites but the people I know who use it often see 30% or more winter deaths anyhow. Is it somehow doing as much damage as good?

Dick

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 08:58:13 -0800
From: randy oliver <ra...@RANDYOLIVER.COM>
Subject: Beekeeping questions begging for practical research

Charlie, I hope that you made it over the summit to California OK--we got
4+ feet of snow at that elevation last night (but only rain at my
elevation). Any beekeepers with bees on the Valley floor in Calif right
now should be concerned about the predicted flooding for this weekend.

>We as a group need to pose what are the real questions to move the
industry forward.

As a Scientific Advisor for funding by Project Apism, I've been compiling a
list of such practical research questions begging for answers. But when I
posted a request for such crying questions to the List recently, I got only
a single response.

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

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 12:02:24 -0500
From: Peter Loring Borst <peterl...@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Reports of high losses

> often see 30% or more winter deaths

Actually, looking through material from the past 150 years, winter loss in the Northeast and Central states often ranged from 25 to 50 or even more. The outfits with the lowest winter losses usually cut back the numbers in fall. One should actually compare summer high to spring low, to understand the seasonal fluctuation.

In fact, the package bee industry and the migration of beekeepers south in winter, were a result of severe winter losses in the north. Even with indoor wintering facilities losses can be one third or more. With pollination contracts in spring, the incentive is to have very high spring counts.

Minus that, it's pretty easy to recover from losses up to two thirds by making splits on the spring flow and getting honey from the summer and fall flow. Generally that's what I do. The spring honey is bland and insipid around here, anyway.

PLB

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 13:54:06 -0500
From: Paul Hosticka <pshos...@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Reports of high losses

>The reason I ask is there is no question MAQS controls mites but the people I know who use it often see 30% or more winter deaths anyhow. Is it somehow doing as much damage as good?

I have made quite a study of various formic applications in my small operation in eastern WA. There is a very fine line between effective mite control and destructive brood/queen loss. For me MAQS are way too "hot" at the time when I need them (late summer). What you need to be aware of is not only mite drop but brood disruption or heaven forbid queen loss when winter bees are being raised. Spring or early summer applications have a higher safety margin because the colony can recover and many probably don't even notice the lost generation of young bees. Losing that generation in late summer has much more dire results for those of us in the frozen north. There are other softer applications of liquid formic that I have previously discussed. If interested see the archives.

It will be very helpful for all of us if reports of loss are accompanied with reports of mite counts throughout the season and colony weight going into winter. If you don't know then in the immortal words of George Imirie, you have some bees but are not keeping bees. Some speculation on my part. Even if mites are controlled late summer, often the damage is already done. It is a mite/virus complex and killing the mites does not instantly rid the colony of damaging levels of the viruses. A small cluster and the queen is in fact most often the result of the mite/virus complex, IMHO. As Pete and others have pointed out location is everything. I have 5 out-yards and a home yard where we all winter, and a very hard winter it has been. Home is surrounded by other commercial outfits in summer and heavy weed control on the range-lands. This yard is always behind the out-yards that have ample forage and no competition, and thrive, even with the same management. I don't have any solution except to put your bees in isolated yards with good forage. Much easier said than done for sure!

I fear that these reports will lead some to say that CCD or some new problem is upon us. It may be, we have a history of unexplained die-offs, but we first must be sure that it ain't the same old mites, nutrition, weather as usual. The chins will be wagging in Galveston, no doubt. I can hear the call "new research is needed". Lets solve our old problems first, mites and resistant queens.

And a Happy New Year to all!

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA



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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 18:54:41 -0000
From: Peter Edwards <beeke...@STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.FREESERVE.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Reports of high losses

It would perhaps be useful to have data for feral colonies. Perhaps there may be some historical data, but not too many feral colonies now to compare their losses with managed colonies.

Seems to me that beekeepers are obsessed with keeping bees alive through the winter regardless of whether that is having a bad effect on the long term health of bees as a whole.

Best wishes

Peter
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 14:21:08 -0500
From: Janet Baker <berry...@OPTONLINE.NET>
Subject: East Coast Losses

Our experience in NW CT (Litchfield) was somewhat similar to others in the
2016 summer.



Spring flow was above average, but very late. Fall flow was virtually
non-existent. Whatever little honey left in the supers was fed back to the
bees and about 9/27/16 we started to feed 2:1 sugar water and treated with
Hopguard (2nd time - 1st was in August). Honey stores were very low, and we
kept feeding until they wouldn't take any more - 4 to 7 gallons each,
average about 5.5 gals. - up to the end of October when they had 8 to 10
frames of honey in the top brood box.



Pollen supplies, on the other hand, were quite good, but I don't know the
quality.



I haven't checked the hives recently, but most show some flight activity on
warm days.



Starting the night of November 28th through December 3rd, bears took out our
fours colonies at the Litchfield Community Gardens. Guess they are short of
food, too.



Good luck.

John Baker

52 Headquarters Road

Litchfield, CT 06759-2114

860-567-8427

berry...@optonline.net <mailto:berry...@optonline.net>


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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 15:48:33 -0500
From: Adam Ritchie <arit...@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Reports of high losses

> >The outfits with the lowest winter losses usually cut back the numbers
> in fall. One should actually compare summer high to spring low, to
> understand the seasonal fluctuation.
>

There is some real truth here. I find myself being more and more ruthless
when it comes to culling colonies in the fall. Combining the weak with the
strong once mites have been dealt with. I would rather have a 1 strong
colony come spring than 2 weak ones to baby along or two dead-outs to clean
up.

Adam
Barrie, ON

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End of BEE-L Digest - 4 Jan 2017 to 5 Jan 2017 (#2017-6)
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