https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720351585
An interesting bit of research that tried to identify which management practices improve overwintering survival. It's very long and full of scientific gobbledygook. Unless that's your thing, skip straight to the discussion section for the upshot.
...we found that, globally, a majority of beekeepers could expect the greatest reduction in mortality risk by modifying their behavior in terms of comb management, source of new colonies and Varroa management. This holds particularly true for small-scale beekeepers, which represents the majority of beekeepers...
...small-scale beekeepers should adopt a more active beekeeping management, actively replacing their deadouts throughout the active season (Action on Deadouts). When brood comb was taken out of production, it should ideally not been reused unless frozen for a period of time (Comb culling and storage). The benefits of comb management support previous research that showed that newer comb better support honey bee colony health and reproduction...
...beekeepers starting their colonies from packages should expect a higher level of loss over the winter (New Colonies Technique) compared to the ideal situation consisting of making splits from existing colonies...
...the importance of Varroa control is reflected by more than one top ranking criteria (among others, Varroa Treatment Y/N, Varroa products types (count), and various products use), highlighting the benefits of applying a strict Varroa control program. This suggests that some variability exists in the optimum Varroa control methods, but in any case, the use of any type of Varroa control treatment is highly associated with reduction of colony mortality risk compared to the no-treatment option...
They also investigated a large number of other management interventions, and found little connection to overwintering loss. Surprising to me, winter feeding was listed as an intervention not strongly connected to loss.
An interesting bit of research that tried to identify which management practices improve overwintering survival. It's very long and full of scientific gobbledygook. Unless that's your thing, skip straight to the discussion section for the upshot.
...we found that, globally, a majority of beekeepers could expect the greatest reduction in mortality risk by modifying their behavior in terms of comb management, source of new colonies and Varroa management. This holds particularly true for small-scale beekeepers, which represents the majority of beekeepers...
...small-scale beekeepers should adopt a more active beekeeping management, actively replacing their deadouts throughout the active season (Action on Deadouts). When brood comb was taken out of production, it should ideally not been reused unless frozen for a period of time (Comb culling and storage). The benefits of comb management support previous research that showed that newer comb better support honey bee colony health and reproduction...
...beekeepers starting their colonies from packages should expect a higher level of loss over the winter (New Colonies Technique) compared to the ideal situation consisting of making splits from existing colonies...
...the importance of Varroa control is reflected by more than one top ranking criteria (among others, Varroa Treatment Y/N, Varroa products types (count), and various products use), highlighting the benefits of applying a strict Varroa control program. This suggests that some variability exists in the optimum Varroa control methods, but in any case, the use of any type of Varroa control treatment is highly associated with reduction of colony mortality risk compared to the no-treatment option...
They also investigated a large number of other management interventions, and found little connection to overwintering loss. Surprising to me, winter feeding was listed as an intervention not strongly connected to loss.
