she informed me that the winter had been severe and she had personally experience a largest loss of bees. she also works in a Dadant store and she say reports of high winter death losses are mounting by the day.... some as high as 80%.
The manager of our Dadant store up the road is from Wisconsin i think.
Wonder what percentage of these losses were direct descendants of southern package queens and not requeened before winter? It would be common sense that if something is continually genetically selected down in florida somewhere for generations. The ability to handle themselves in winter conditions could be completely eliminated from their genepool.
There is an area bout 20 minutes from me that has four colonies and that's it as far as i know. They are an old line of bees that have made it through the mites and everything else.
Two of those four are dead right now since last year. Might not be but one alive this spring.
Two colonies are in an old 1800s farm house and one each in two more old houses. One of those old houses goes back to the late 1800s most likely.
They got alot of swarming to do to catch back up. but i'm supposed to get a call up there when a swarm is hangin. I'd like to give the genepool a try anyway.
