Anyone else seeing these losses?

[bberry]

This was a front page article in our local newspaper. Even though i knew it was a hard year for bees here i did not know myself that my neighbors were suffering such high losses.
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080223/NEWS/802230323/1033/NEWS01

I just lost my first hive last week :'( due to .....who the H knows? I posted a bit back about the large amount of dead bees out front but they still had plenty of honey and i was feeding them too, but they up and left me to cry in my beer anyway. My other hive is thriving like the dickens though so hope springs eternal. Am now focusing on the coming spring-buying and readying hives and switching to small cell and trying to catch those all important feral swarms. Also prepping the property for large scale planting come spring...what else can/do you do???

[Kirk-o]

I used to every year.I would by a package they would die in the fall or during winter.I would by a queen Dud or be superceded.Very frustrateing.So I figured what I was doing wasn't working.I also figured no one else new what to do either.So I figured I had to find someone who had success with bees now a days.
I found Michael Bush's Page then Dee Lusby organic beekeepers on yaho.

This is what I did to solve my Problem

1 stopped purchaseing bees.

2 started cathing swarms

3 stopped treating for anything no treatments

4 used small and natural cell

5 started haveing success

6 Stopped loseing bees to mysterious things(Bees disappearing stuff like that.)

7 started enjoying beekeeping

Started enjoying beekeeping like in the 70's

kirko

[Cindi]

bBerry, sorry to hear of the loss of your colony.  You are going ahead with a great frame of mind though, that must be said.  Yep, we all have experienced losses at one time or another and it is not a good or nice feeling, rather sad.  So....carry on, your game plan is good and you will do well....keep on keepin' on and have a wonderful and beautiful day, love our life.  Cindi

[MrILoveTheAnts]

I plan to introduce small cell into my current hives next year. As for CCD I'd be curious on the quality of nectar these farm crops are producing. I herd recently that vegetables like Carrots contain only 1/3 the vitamins they did a few years ago because they're constantly grown in the same soil. Perhaps certain types of fertilizers (if they're even used) aren't feeding to a certain microorganism that would otherwise produce a nutrient the tree would contribute to nectar production?
I'd be curious to see if a CCD effects beekeeper as much as those that deal with farmers who rotate their live stock and farm fields. It's hard to imagen fruit farmers even attempting this since they can't move their trees around.

[bberry]

Cindi-thank you for the positive reinforcement! I look forward to this coming season and all the new lessons it will bring :)
MrIlovetheants- You are 100% on the money here. Back when farming was farming crop rotation was standard practice leaving plots of land to cover crop and rejuvinate for a season or two. This practice has been nearly eliminated in new age farming practices and this constant depletion of the quality of the soil has resulted in our market veggies containing a fraction of the nutrient load they once carried-there was a study on this recently and i wish i could call up the source but it stated this same fact. By sowing the same plots of land season after season and relying simply upon artificial fertilizers we kill all the natural microorganisms that are essential for healthy growth. It definately makes one wonder at the quality of the pollen such plants produce, if we are giving ourselves a fractional nutrient diet that undermines our immune systems and makes us more susceptible to infection and disease, then it goes to reason that the same can be said of the bees hwo are subsisting off of the same.  :-P

[MrILoveTheAnts]

A way to test if food is the problem would be to boost a CCD suffering hive with honey stores from that of healthy hives and see what happens.