Winter losses

[Bcrazy]

Hi Chris
Let me explain, for the last 5 years I have always left a super of the bees honey on top of the Brood box and removed the QE. Since doing this i have NOT lost one colony during the winter except for 2 years ago when all my hives were vandalized (I lost all the colonies then). So to me its not suck it and see is proof, fact.

Mo

 

[Nellie]

Just as an update, I've a shade under 400 colonies and Nucs counted going into winter.

If I include those reported as drone layers or having been combined with other colonies, I'm at 15.03% loss.

Excluding those to simple "I opened the hive and it was dead" that figure drops to 13.98%

I think these numbers are fairly optimistic though. The majority of the loss reports are from multiple colony beekeepers which doesn't surprise me on figures gathered from public forum posts.

I'm running at an average colony per beekeeper of 7.8 which isn't far off twice the BBKA average number.

 

[Essex Bees]

I lost 10 hives from 16 - main reason I think is damp. The hives I bought last year having moved back from France, were from a supposedly reputable supplier but the condition of the hives I bought left a lot to be desired. Family problems meant I didn't have time to build new hives and so I suffered huge losses.

Having kept bees for 7 years with absolutely no problems whatsoever, it was more than a slight shock!

On the plus side, 2 of the surviving hives have needed splitting already and they are doing great

 

[GoEnviro]

Interesting poll shame there arent more details ie numbers of hives per answer.
May be possible to change it in the 3rd year of doing it if %'s of 1 to 5 hive is the same

 

[susbees]

Duh, this is last years...