Marin County, Ca has a very active bee association with a strong bias towards "treatment free" husbandry. The association is extremely well educated: its monthly meeting in this year has featured lectures by Kefuss, Spivak, Cobey, Berry , Delaney and Seely. In 2013-4, the association supported a local "survivor" nuc endeavor.
Marin Bees have a local survey of bee keeper practices and outcomes. The April 2013 to April 2014 results have just been published. Key findings for me include the statistic that TF methods (the majority of the association) had a 50% mortality rate, and formic treatment experienced a 30% hive mortality.
I prepared a graphic of colony flows documented by the survey, rectangles are proportional to the colony tally.
Marin has attempted to respond to the shrinkage in hobby hives by promoting splitting management. The survey shows that maintenance of numbers require importation from producers and swarm capture.
The differential mortality of hives under different management strategy shows a interesting bimodal distribution: the organic acids have mortality <40%, and the TF and "folk" treatments have mortality exceeding 50%.
Raw data for the % survival by tally of hives
One aspect of hobby keepers I am very concerned with is "Churn". This is the constant turnover as new beeks enter the hobby, but quickly wash out. This is time and energy drain for people, like myself, that have been active with bees for many years. I much support a "sustainable" system, that recruits folks and provide them with effective tools, so these people do not lose money and interest in beekeeping due to constant losses.
The age structure of the Marin Beeks show a logarithmic decline in demography. The survey has been repeated for several years, and the the rapid "extinction" of new beeks can be traced in the repeated surveys.
Of note, is the interesting statistic -- first year beeks reported lower mortality than the norm (mortality peaks in year two). This is of course is consistent with the first year halcyon relief from mite pressure in newly established hives.
Mortality is concentrated for the Marin survey in the September to December period. This, of course, it the peak mite pressure period.
In summary, I think this survey documents that the social pressure to conform to a "treatment free" ethos results in the tragic loss of bees and unfortunate loss of beekeepers.
Marin Bees have a local survey of bee keeper practices and outcomes. The April 2013 to April 2014 results have just been published. Key findings for me include the statistic that TF methods (the majority of the association) had a 50% mortality rate, and formic treatment experienced a 30% hive mortality.
I prepared a graphic of colony flows documented by the survey, rectangles are proportional to the colony tally.
Marin has attempted to respond to the shrinkage in hobby hives by promoting splitting management. The survey shows that maintenance of numbers require importation from producers and swarm capture.
The differential mortality of hives under different management strategy shows a interesting bimodal distribution: the organic acids have mortality <40%, and the TF and "folk" treatments have mortality exceeding 50%.
Raw data for the % survival by tally of hives
One aspect of hobby keepers I am very concerned with is "Churn". This is the constant turnover as new beeks enter the hobby, but quickly wash out. This is time and energy drain for people, like myself, that have been active with bees for many years. I much support a "sustainable" system, that recruits folks and provide them with effective tools, so these people do not lose money and interest in beekeeping due to constant losses.
The age structure of the Marin Beeks show a logarithmic decline in demography. The survey has been repeated for several years, and the the rapid "extinction" of new beeks can be traced in the repeated surveys.
Of note, is the interesting statistic -- first year beeks reported lower mortality than the norm (mortality peaks in year two). This is of course is consistent with the first year halcyon relief from mite pressure in newly established hives.
Mortality is concentrated for the Marin survey in the September to December period. This, of course, it the peak mite pressure period.
In summary, I think this survey documents that the social pressure to conform to a "treatment free" ethos results in the tragic loss of bees and unfortunate loss of beekeepers.