More dead bees

[snimmo243]

'More bee deaths' in northern Europe http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26923214

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[fatshark]

Interesting
Figure 1 … high levels of winter losses associated with colder climates. Nothing like exclusively (I believe it gets pretty nippy in Poland in the winter), but I suspect it's not a coincidence.
Figure 4 … varroosis levels. Disappointingly (perhaps disgracefully) high in the UK … surely this should be less with good management?
Interestingly, CBPV levels were also pretty high in the UK … a virus that is not transmitted by Varroa.

I wonder how they selected apiaries to review? In the UK, I wonder if this was only those registered on BeeBase?

[snimmo243]

Interesting
Figure 1 … high levels of winter losses associated with colder climates. Nothing like exclusively (I believe it gets pretty nippy in Poland in the winter), but I suspect it's not a coincidence.

Just a couple of thoughts, could it be down to the use of non native bees? Is there more use of local bees in the countries with lower losses? A few years ago when discussing winter with some of the polish guys at work they said that although Poland was colder Scotland was worse because it is cold and wet

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[gavin]

Interesting
Figure 1 … high levels of winter losses associated with colder climates.

Yup, interesting. It may be partly explained by the tracks of depressions all summer in 2012 giving some northern parts of Europe the same wet summer we - and our bees - suffered. From the beeb:



I agree about the appalling Varroa issues in the UK compared to our continental chums. And there you have the big factors we already know to affect bee survival: weather (and its effect on foraging) and Varroa. Plus access to forage itself.

SASA presented some data at a conference recently from an apiary survey (maybe part of this study?) that showed the strength of the link between summer Varroa level and winter loss in apiaries.

They have an equally appalling problem in France with AFB. 11.6% of apiaries with AFB in visit 1?