Honey Bee Losses - Survey 2016-17

摘要

In the fall of 2016, we were already anticipating that there would be some higher losses due to varroa mite. Last fall, I visited with several beekeepers that were seeing higher levels of varroa mite in the fall either because they did not treat in the spring or had to cut the treatment short because of the early honey flow. I was also getting reports from beekeepers that were using oxalic acid when there was lots of brooc in the hives that originally though they were getting good varroa control to find out that the mites population was rebounding back to where it had been within a couple weeks. In spite of all that, most beekeepers reported that they were quite satisfied with the condition of the bees going into winter and optimistic about having a successful winter.