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Yes they are. That is exactly what the Colony Collapse Disorder crisis is all about. The hives managed by beekeepers for the purpose of pollenating crops are my

by dugword 10y ago

Yes they are. That is exactly what the Colony Collapse Disorder crisis is all about. The hives managed by beekeepers for the purpose of pollenating crops are mysteriously dying off, and they are having a hard time finding replacement swarms to manage.

beala 10y ago
I'm hardly a beekeeping expert, but I've read that human managed colonies are actually not in decline. "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-off-the-bee-pocalypse-u-s-honeybee-colonies-hit-a-20-year-high/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-... The article argues that CCD has made beekeeping more expensive, which is a cost passed onto consumers in the form of more expensive honey, but beekeepers have found ways to keep their colonies from disappearing.
- saalweachter 10y ago
  The way an old-timer described it to me was that CCD amounts to an increase in overwintering failures from around 10% for well-managed hives to around 25-50%. This in turn means that you've got to do a lot more splits (where you create a new hive by splitting an old hive into two, and either inducing them to produce a queen or adding a carefully-bred queen yourself) or buying new packages of bees from someone who has already done this for you. A new hive usually needs a year to get up to full strength -- you can occasionally take a little bit off a new hive, but not much, and most beekeepers don't even risk it. As you say, 25-50% failure rates are expensive but currently within the range of what can be replaced; new packages of bees currently cost around $100-150 on the east coast, but aren't really hard to find. I'm somewhat curious how high of a failure rate can be sustained. It pretty much depends on how many splits you can generate a year starting from a single hive, which isn't a number I'm familiar with.

by dugword 10y ago

beala 10y ago

I'm hardly a beekeeping expert, but I've read that human managed colonies are actually not in decline. "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-off-the-bee-pocalypse-u-s-honeybee-colonies-hit-a-20-year-high/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-... The article argues that CCD has made beekeeping more expensive, which is a cost passed onto consumers in the form of more expensive honey, but beekeepers have found ways to keep their colonies from disappearing.

saalweachter 10y ago
The way an old-timer described it to me was that CCD amounts to an increase in overwintering failures from around 10% for well-managed hives to around 25-50%. This in turn means that you've got to do a lot more splits (where you create a new hive by splitting an old hive into two, and either inducing them to produce a queen or adding a carefully-bred queen yourself) or buying new packages of bees from someone who has already done this for you. A new hive usually needs a year to get up to full strength -- you can occasionally take a little bit off a new hive, but not much, and most beekeepers don't even risk it. As you say, 25-50% failure rates are expensive but currently within the range of what can be replaced; new packages of bees currently cost around $100-150 on the east coast, but aren't really hard to find. I'm somewhat curious how high of a failure rate can be sustained. It pretty much depends on how many splits you can generate a year starting from a single hive, which isn't a number I'm familiar with.