That's actually a reasonable percentage of bees to lose. Hear me out.

Commercial keepers never have to over-winter the bees, they can move them north and south with the growing seasons of various orchards. The bees are always producing honey, which is better for the beekeepers (who are in the business of selling honey after all), but the bees never experience winter. That means the weaker bees never die off in winter -- some estimates are as many as 40% of a hive's bees will perish in the cold. Our own experience has been around 30% of the bees die over the winter, but of course so many new ones are born during warmer months it's a sustainable, relatively productive hive.

Until commercial beekeepers, with their artificially large hives, start experiencing a "startling die-off" that even approaches what happens in nature, I'm not going to worry that there's anything more complicated than over-reaching going on.

She told me that her mentors (who've been beekeepers for more than a decade) lost about 40% of their hives (ENTIRE hives, not 'weak' bees).

The sad part is that they considered this a 'good' outcome, considering their losses from the previous 2-3 years.

Last edited Sat Mar 30, 2013, 11:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Do your friend's bees ever experience winter?

Edited to be clear: that number is similar to that experienced in wild and naturally-kept hives.

do you think the concerns articulated by these veteran beekeepers (who most assuredly know about 'winter die-offs') are unwarranted? Do you think the growing controversy about loss of honey bees is unwarranted?

BTW, I recently returned to the Ozarks, in time to witness Spring (after an absence of twelve years). I saw flowers blooming weeks earlier than 'normal.' I saw my housemate's pear tree blossoms come and go without the swarm of honey bees we've seen around that tree in years gone by. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of bees I saw in her fallow garden spot, where I walked my dog almost daily. I am concerned, and will remain so, given the fact that two-thirds of our crops are pollinated by bees.

Changes in climate are undeniable; loss of commercial honeybees are documented. The issue is whether those bees would be dying off in the numbers described were they not already made less robust by commercial beekeeping practice.

Commercial beekeepers feed their bees antibiotics, appetite stimulants, amino acids, fluvalinate, coumaphos and much more; they put out extra pollen, and extra sugar in solution -- all practices that generate more honey. Which is the idea, from their perspective.

But you cannot tell me that beehives that are trucked all over, fed unnatural foodstuffs and medicines, and avoid normal seasonal die-offs are as robust as hives that stay in one place, and grow at a rate commensurate with the availability of natural pollen and nectar.

There are certainly environmental changes at work here; but a robust bee population would adapt to them more readily.

I love the smell of reason on a mild spring afternoon.

Thank you.

Wild species are disappearing at a tremendous rate as well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/bumble-bee-decline_n_803896.html

The explanations you offer for the loss of commercial colonies cannot be easily extrapolated to explain the native bee losses.

I recommend a much more recent article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hive-and-seek-domestic-honeybees-keep-disappearing

My link was discussing the population sizes of four specific species. While the total number of species appears solid, the number of individuals appears to be falling rapidly.

If I once found 1000 bees from 5 species in my garden, but now find only 10 bees from those 5 same species, I couldn't say they were in good shape.

Bombus occidentalis, B. pensylvanicus, B. affinis and B. terricola. There are more than 30 species of bombus (bumblebee), and several hundred species of bee (800 IIRC).

But -- and this is important -- relative abundance of a species is not the same as the total numbers of bees. "Relative abundance" means, if you gather 1,000 bees, how many of them are Species A?

Here's an illustrative excerpt from the study they're talking about (PDF):

and we generally don't lose many bees in winter. We hardly had a winter at all this year. I am hearing some reports of big loses. I lost a hive last year where I went out to check them and they were just gone. Super was filled to the brim with honey. It was wild. I think the problem is multifaeted and just comes together as a perfet storm for the bees.

Were the dead bees still there, or is there a chance they simply absconded? One of the bee club guys had his first two hives abscond, I'm frankly amazed he stuck it out with a third. They were package queens; he was pretty sure he wasn't adequately ventilating in the summer, because when he did the colony stuck.