# Losses



## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

A few weeks ago my loss was just under ten percent and I had no dinks that you pretty much know aren't going to make it. Now I have half my hives with too much snow in the way to get to, I may lose some to late starvation if they chew thru the sugar on the top bars too fast.


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

RangerLee said:


> I only lost 25% this winter.......


Pretty sad when 25% is viewed as "low" losses.
Most, if not all of the beekeepers that I know lost more than 25% this winter.

The worst part is, WE ARE GETTING NO HELP!!
A "new" video showing how to do an alcohol wash or install strips is NO HELP!
A lot of chest pounding and running up flag-poles, but nothing new..

As usual, it is up to us as beekeepers to find our own solutions.
Commercial beekeeping still exists STRICTLY due to beekeepers finding their own solutions.

The total lack of urgency to find solutions really bothers me.


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

HarryVanderpool said:


> The worst part is, WE ARE GETTING NO HELP!!
> .


Not so, I went down to the county ag office this morning to register for the Bee Aware program.The lady said everything is going to be OK now. No more spray no more stolen bees all good then they took my money.:lookout:

There was a sign , I'm from the government and I'm here to help.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Is there any pattern or common denominator of apparent cause of the losses?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well Ranger Lee mentioned queen loss.

To me this is on the money. Over here winters are mild and we don't lose hives in winter due to harsh environment, but queen loss is a common cause. A national survey has been done here and winter losses are estimated at around 10% nationally. Best I can tell some of that is due to beekeeper screw ups like insufficient winter stores etc, but the bulk is due to queen failure.

I can remember keeping bees pre varroa. Queen failure in winter was almost non existant. The first place i worked for had not quite 4,000 hives and almost none were lost in winter. If we did find a dead out the boss would be wanting to know why and whose fault it was. Whole different ball game now with losses expected, and re stocking viewed as a normal method of swarm control.

My theory is this. - Bees have evolved to be able to detect a failing queen and replace her in good time. But, that was in a low virus, pre varroa environment. Queens likely to fail in winter would have already been superseded in fall. I know that's true, because of the near zero winter queen fails we had pre varroa.
Now different ball game. Bees and including the queen harbor virus levels thousands of times higher than in pre varroa times. A queen can seem good to the bees in fall and not be superseded, but go down hill faster than normal and fail before spring drones are available to mate with a new queen.


Like many, a few years ago I was inspired by the treatment free movement and ran a bunch of TF hives in a (failed) attempt to produce a TF bee. What I did notice during those times was the much higher incidence of queen failure. And since then i have also noticed that the better i control varroa, the less winter queen failure and winter losses i have.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

HarryVanderpool said:


> Pretty sad when 25% is viewed as "low" losses.
> Most, if not all of the beekeepers that I know lost more than 25% this winter.
> 
> The worst part is, WE ARE GETTING NO HELP!!
> ...


who exactly would you expect to be helping you? reading the articles from Adee, it's dicamba herbicide in S. Dakota, varroa, loss of habitat, the diesel smoke from the low sulfur diesel, neonics is being held in reserve, and with Adee he has major locations in at least three states, is he having the same problems in all of them? If the beek can't isolate a problem, not sure how you expect any one else that doesn't know your bees to isolate it either. Randy Oliver is in your area, he doesn't do pollination other than almonds, never see him reporting the same amount of problems and losses?? The bip teams are working with the commercial beeks still, right?


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

RangerLee said:


> Most the deadouts had closed queen cells and others had cells indicating a queen had emerged and killed the other cells. I would say I only had several hives that died from the traditional signs of CCD.
> 
> Have others noticed anything like these observations?


I'm not sure what the traditional signs of "CCD" looks like, but DEFINITELY have noticed the cells.
Almost every single deadout has queen cells in one form or another.
These queen problems would have had to happen very late in the year because we did a very good job at staying on top of queen-checking this year.
Although the queen issues are right there in front of your face, I'm not ready to blame the queens themselves just yet.
Do we have yet another virus that affects queens?
Does Oxalic acid negatively impact queens?
Is attempted queen replacement just another part of a bad varroa year which we had?

We must not jump to conclusions.
And, for sure; if anyone is going to find solutions it is going to be us.
Nobody else cares!


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## liljake83 (Jul 2, 2013)

The strange thing that I noticed this December and I'm not the only one who noticed this by the way was when initially grading a hive that say had 8 frames of bees the next week would only have 6-7 then 5 the next week there was a slow decline that I have never seen usually its a steady incline strange year for sure


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

HarryVanderpool said:


> I'm not sure what the traditional signs of "CCD" looks like


PMS


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

liljake83 said:


> The strange thing that I noticed this December and I'm not the only one who noticed this by the way was when initially grading a hive that say had 8 frames of bees the next week would only have 6-7 then 5 the next week there was a slow decline that I have never seen usually its a steady incline strange year for sure


THAT is the story of the year from all reports I receive.


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## RAK (May 2, 2010)

Well folks, I definitely got my share of junk but 85% of my bees were rented in Cali (1900 hives in almonds). The remaining 15% is a mix of deadouts and weak hives(3 framers) sitting in the holding yard. The 85% graded well 1st week of Jan. The bees were re-graded last week of Jan and 1st week of Feb. Most hives increased in frame counts. Im not sure why people are having these issues with such huge losses. I know one thing for sure. The 15% dinks were mostly from the last 6 yards that we pulled honey(last week of Aug, 32 hives per yard) and they recieved treatment 2 weeks later than the rest. We treat the day we pull. These bees also received sub and syrup later than the rest. Im not saying im a good beekeeper or anything but I have noticed our bees look good since we've been staying on top of mites and nutrition. This year we learned that TIMING is huge!!!!!! I think too many procrastinate with treatments and nutrition!


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

HarryVanderpool said:


> Is attempted queen replacement just another part of a bad varroa year which we had?
> 
> We must not jump to conclusions.
> And, for sure; if anyone is going to find solutions it is going to be us.
> Nobody else cares!


here you go Jerry Bromenshenk gave you the method to figure out your problem.


> This may well be varroa. Last summer, we pushed the varroa edge in our app testing and we subsequently took our 'before' end of Dec losses. We knew the risk, but wanted some answers.
> As per the tens of thousands of dying colonies (presumably they lost the bees not the boxes) I'd rather see the results of sampling and analysis of dying/dead bees, if any.
> 
> Varroa should be in the samples in high numbers. What about Nosema? First year without fumagillin? Send samples to USDA or Dave Tarpy for PCR for viruses,Dave Wick for general virus scans. Talk to Dave Wick about the bacteria he's tracking and can now look for with new instrumentation. Do some chemical residue testing - it's a possible, but improbable factor on this scale.
> ...


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## Woodside (Aug 10, 2010)

RAK said:


> Well folks, I definitely got my share of junk but 85% of my bees were rented in Cali (1900 hives in almonds). The remaining 15% is a mix of deadouts and weak hives(3 framers) sitting in the holding yard. The 85% graded well 1st week of Jan. The bees were re-graded last week of Jan and 1st week of Feb. Most hives increased in frame counts. Im not sure why people are having these issues with such huge losses. I know one thing for sure. The 15% dinks were mostly from the last 6 yards that we pulled honey(last week of Aug, 32 hives per yard) and they recieved treatment 2 weeks later than the rest. We treat the day we pull. These bees also received sub and syrup later than the rest. Im not saying im a good beekeeper or anything but I have noticed our bees look good since we've been staying on top of mites and nutrition. This year we learned that TIMING is huge!!!!!! I think too many procrastinate with treatments and nutrition!


This


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## justin (Jun 16, 2007)

Adee was in missoula for a pollinators documentary (he was one of the beekeepers it followed). I asked if he had a theory on the massive losses by so many across the board. He said there is a new bio lipid inhibitor on the market that might interfere with the bees ability to thermoregulate. He wasn’t speaking on the record, or talking specifically about his own losses.
On a side note, lots of people seem to be increasing the percentage and number of times they apply amitraz to the hives they didn’t lose.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

justin said:


> A He said there is a new bio lipid inhibitor on the market that might interfere with the bees ability to thermoregulate. He wasn’t speaking on the record, or talking specifically about his own losses.


Perhaps he was referencing this: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/416354v1

There are also studies on different pollen sources and their effect on bees to thermoregulate. Certainly bees with very poor nutrition will have very poor ability to thermoregulate.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Intrepid is the product name, says it controls lepidoptera. Used in Almonds, grapes, soy, citrus. I don't know how common it is to use in each of those crops though.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Are some areas in the country experiencing varroa resistance to Amitraz?


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

JRG13 said:


> Intrepid is the product name, says it controls lepidoptera. Used in Almonds, grapes, soy, citrus. I don't know how common it is to use in each of those crops though.


Which contains Methoxyfenozide, and is the chemical studied in the link I provided in post #16


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

crofter said:


> Are some areas in the country experiencing varroa resistance to Amitraz?


In my area I think we have bred a better mite. I quit using it the last two seasons because of heavy losses of those relying on Amitraz. I now rotate Apiguard and Oxalic vaporization.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

Vance G said:


> In my area I think we have bred a better mite. I quit using it the last two seasons because of heavy losses of those relying on Amitraz. I now rotate Apiguard and Oxalic vaporization.


I bought two nucs a couple of years from a commercial beek, put them in an isolation yard and put apivar on with sticky boards, no mite fall, put on apiguard, and got more than enough mites falling, so many in one nuc they crashed any way. One made it now I have to take that one out b/4 I can reuse the yard.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

If ---- big if---- there is a factor of_ some_ resistance to the treatment, and _some_ loss of effectiveness by somewhat late treating, the combination of things could lead to high net losses without pointing to really PPBeekeeping.

Would there be any factor of a common source of many of the queens involved with the heavy losses? Miticide resistance and bee susceptibility both could quickly be moved to different areas this way. 

Are the losses highly stacked towards bees that are doing similar pollination gigs and absent in others? If there is a stark difference it would seem the cause should not remain mysterious for too long.


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## justin (Jun 16, 2007)

A lot of the losses were discovered coming out of the buildings people use for overwintering. By the time they come out of the building, they have been shuffled and stacked and it is hard to know which hives came from which yards, which pollination etc... I know there are ways of keeping track and isolating.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

RAK said:


> Well folks, I definitely got my share of junk but 85% of my bees were rented in Cali (1900 hives in almonds). The remaining 15% is a mix of deadouts and weak hives(3 framers) sitting in the holding yard. The 85% graded well 1st week of Jan. The bees were re-graded last week of Jan and 1st week of Feb. Most hives increased in frame counts. Im not sure why people are having these issues with such huge losses. I know one thing for sure. The 15% dinks were mostly from the last 6 yards that we pulled honey(last week of Aug, 32 hives per yard) and they recieved treatment 2 weeks later than the rest. We treat the day we pull. These bees also received sub and syrup later than the rest. Im not saying im a good beekeeper or anything but I have noticed our bees look good since we've been staying on top of mites and nutrition. This year we learned that TIMING is huge!!!!!! I think too many procrastinate with treatments and nutrition!


We have experienced similar results [but with smaller numbers of colonies] after staying on top of the mites and nutrition. Most colonies grew in January and without fail, every colony was devouring sugar bricks and pollen sub. We had to add more sugar bricks and pollen sub on a weekly basis. For me, it was an eye opener experience. I never would have suspected the bees would eat that much.

We are still adding sugar bricks and pollen sub even after two weeks in the almond orchards [we did it again today]. It may have to do with all the rain and cold weather we have had here in the Central Valley.

In the almond orchard we are pollinating we are at approximately 70% bloom, yet the bees are still devouring the sugar bricks and pollen sub...and growing in numbers daily.

BUT, we cannot figure out how or why we saw hundreds upon hundreds of dead bees on the ground in front of the entrances a few days after placing the bees in the almond orchards. It was really weird because most dead bees were only on the north side of the colonies even though the colonies were facing north and south. Still scratching our heads on that one. It was kind scary at first, but inspections revealed the queens were outlaying the losses. Have no clue at all what caused that type of loss.


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

RAK said:


> Well folks, I definitely got my share of junk but 85% of my bees were rented in Cali (1900 hives in almonds). The remaining 15% is a mix of deadouts and weak hives(3 framers) sitting in the holding yard. The 85% graded well 1st week of Jan. The bees were re-graded last week of Jan and 1st week of Feb. Most hives increased in frame counts. Im not sure why people are having these issues with such huge losses. I know one thing for sure. The 15% dinks were mostly from the last 6 yards that we pulled honey(last week of Aug, 32 hives per yard) and they recieved treatment 2 weeks later than the rest. We treat the day we pull. These bees also received sub and syrup later than the rest. Im not saying im a good beekeeper or anything but I have noticed our bees look good since we've been staying on top of mites and nutrition. This year we learned that TIMING is huge!!!!!! I think too many procrastinate with treatments and nutrition!


Results of a survey on winter mortality 2016-2017 to 430 beekeepers with 20,787 hives spread over 1,616 apiaries to beekeepers in French Alsace: the colonies treated in July are associated with the best winter survival rates. The winter losses were: 16.4% for the colonies treated in July; 21, 2% for those treated in August; 26.7% for those treated in September; and 41.1% for those treated in October.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

AstroBee said:


> Which contains Methoxyfenozide, and is the chemical studied in the link I provided in post #16


Yeah Astro, I was just posting the name of the product from the link you provided, sorry, i should've quoted it in that link.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

wildbranch2007 said:


> I bought two nucs a couple of years from a commercial beek, put them in an isolation yard and put apivar on with sticky boards, no mite fall, put on apiguard, and got more than enough mites falling, so many in one nuc they crashed any way. One made it now I have to take that one out b/4 I can reuse the yard.


The problem is you dosed with Apivar.... I think the rampant use of higher doses of Amitraz via Taktic will make Apivar less and less effective each year moving forward or at least it will vary so much in reliability you will want to always use a follow up with a different mode of action.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

JRG13 said:


> The problem is you dosed with Apivar.... I think the rampant use of higher doses of Amitraz via Taktic will make Apivar less and less effective each year moving forward or at least it will vary so much in reliability you will want to always use a follow up with a different mode of action.


Yup, I did the whole thing on purpose just to see how resistant they were getting , the other reason I did it a person was buying 100's of nucs from these people and reselling them around me, gotta know your limitations.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Yep, I've captured a few known commercial swarms.... Apivar didn't do much for them...


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Its interesting and sad how we all worried about Adee, and yet he plods on as one of the biggest. Never talk about the others that are doing great and busting ass. Look at Millers, or Zach browning, or Oliveraz, Heitkum and Ward, but poor poor Adee? Sorry Harry, but the reason were not getting help, is we keep looking at all the wrong problems and answers. look at the successes and imitate them.

All of us here should know just how quickly bees go to ****, when you have more hives than you can reasonably take care of properly. ever notice its always the same guys? and always the same ones cashing in.

Charles


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

gmcharlie said:


> All of us here should know just how quickly bees go to ****, when you have more hives than you can reasonably take care of properly. ever notice its always the same guys? and always the same ones cashing in.
> 
> Charles


nice to see you posting again, been missing for a while


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

Well, it's been a while since I've been on here. I thought I'd come sleuthing through the commercial threads to see if anyone started a thread on losses after hearing of some very bad situations here in my neck of the woods. but maybe I'll start with my story...

Last May, I had my hives inspected par for course to ship my 600 nucs. At the time, my might count was 1.3%. This should of been my first clue. In the previous years my mite counts have been 0. I thought I'd ride it out until I start my treatments at mid August. This year I had used apistan, Which had worked well 2 and 4 years ago using them for a break from apivar. However, by August 23, I still hadn't noticed any mites falling but I was also noticing large portions of capped brood being uncapped by the bees (my hives were still strong singles at this point). Nervous, I bought a Easycheck and some windshield fluid and started sampling. 300 bee washes were throwing out 50+ mites (16%mite load) and I panicked.

So I had wasted $1700.00 CAD on apistan. I didn't what to risk buying some other type of treatment unknowing whether it would work or not but after reading up about the OAV, I purchased a provap 110, a generator, extension cord, 25kg oxalic acid, and protective gear which all cost less totaled than the apistan did. I did two treatments of formic (mite wipes for TM mostly) and started the OAV. but I only got 2 treatments of the OAV in before I got nervous about their food situation so I took 4 days to feed patties, filled the inboards with 2:1, and even laid sugar on the inner covers. Since I stopped the OAV for about a week, I had to start new. I did 4 treatments 3 days apart. at the beginning of these treatments, samples were ranging from 5-13% and the brood started looking like shotty pattern (Interestingly there was no PMS. other than the brood dragged out by the bees, the remaining brood was surprisingly healthy nor was there any DWV).

I was finished the final treatments by October 4th but so much time had passed from the bees to actually be rearing good brood for good winter bees, quite a few hives had diminished to a 4 frame population. I had 240 hives at this point and started consolidating by pinching queens in anything with 4 frames of bees or less and uniting it to colonies with five frames or more so by the time I was finished, I was down to 176 hives with 8 frames of bees and 4 frames of brood (the brood was starting to look much better by now). Another 2 pound patty was given, Another inner cover of sugar, and then I started feeding 2:1 as long as could placing rocks on the colonies as they reach back breaking weight until the weather turned ugly in mid November.

I did another 3 more OAV, once in November, another between Christmas and New Year's, then another in the second week of January. I should note that after the fall treatments were done, I didn't have the heart to sample anymore, I just made the call that my hives couldn't afford the loss of anymore bees. Anyway, up until the end of January, I had only lost one hive. November and December had been unusually mild and then January was just crazy mild. I couldn't resist the urge one sunny day at the end of the month to go through one hive and she was already brooded up on 3 frames which is highly unusual for us here, its something you'd expect by 3rd or 4th week of February. 

But then the f****in' vortex happened for February. apparently, this has been the coldest February since records had started being kept in our area in 1939 with an average day time high of .3 degrees which is 4 degrees below the monthly average. Yeahhhh, you can laugh at us with our weak weather, but once the hives have started brooding like that, the constant cold makes them cluster around the brood to keep it warm and they start having trouble reaching the stores at the outer parts and then before you know it, there shimmering on the frames on their way to starvation. I've been trying my best to prevent it but the bees clenched up tighter than a cows butt in fly season so... In the month of February I've already lost 26 hives bringing me to 14% loss. I'm sure to discover more dead outs on the next outing. on the bright side, I've now been able to lift the inner covers to assess the populations and between the strong and medium sized hives there are 109 total and 45 which are on the weak side, many of which will regress into oblivion if I can't get out there to boost them soon. Really, all I need to make a go of it this year is 120 hives.

So looking back, I remember thinking in the fall that this was going to be a bad, bad, bad year for anyone not paying attention to there mite levels and doing something about it. At the time, almost any beekeeper I talked to were dealing with extraordinary mite loads and I was already predicting a heavy loss year for many beekeepers in BC. So far, I know of 4 beeks that have breeched the 70% loss and two others that won't say but the grim look on their face says it all. I don't know, it seems like for us this year that we've had the perfect storm to create colony losses.

But looking back, I realized how little I knew about varroa behaviour. I never monitored and always assumed that a particular treatment would work. I learnt a lot last year about mite behaviour. I won't take a 1.3% mite population for granted. I will be monitoring at least once every 3 weeks, and if I have to drop everything to do a 2 week OAV treatment, so be it.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Sounds like you did everything right under the circumstances CB!


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

chillardbee said:


> the remaining brood was surprisingly healthy nor was there any DWV).


that seems to be one of the trends lately, no DWV but still high mite counts. good luck in the spring.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Interesting account chillard. My take is Apistan just can't be trusted even in a multi day rotation.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

jim lyon said:


> Interesting account chillard. My take is Apistan just can't be trusted even in a multi day rotation.


And yet I see Apistan and Checkmite advertised for mite control without any cautions.
Some lessons must be repeated, I guess.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Apivar may be suspect too in some areas. A long treatment time like that requires, makes it too late to recover with something else if it proves to be ineffective.


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## R055 (Jun 9, 2018)

I had 530 that went into November alive. I brought them to California ~January 10th and 504 alive. Went this weekend to feed and oa treatment, still 504 alive. That would be about 5% overwinter loss. Could have been less if I overwintered them all on my good winter yard. Almost all the ones that died were from the yard that i haven't wintered there before and they had smaller frame counts than the hives on my good yard. It's crazy considering the yards are only 5 miles away. 

I took a decent loss in the fall when pretty much all the hives that i had them raise their own queens in the spring became really small and died or the queen became drone layers(It was about 120 hives and I think only about 10 of those hives turned out okay). I'll stick to buying all queens from wootens this year.

Hoping to increase my numbers to 800-1000 for next year's almonds.


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