The best way to describe this past winter would be “too long & too many mites. Although we do not have an accurate account of the winter losses this winter, a preliminary survey has been initiated to try to collect that data. At the time of writing this article (April 15, 2022), the datacoming in suggests that losses will be much higher than usual, but how much higher is still unknown. The preliminary data will be consolidated and presented at the MBA Special General Meeting on April 23, 2022. For some beekeepers, it was a complete disaster but for others, it was only disappointing.Although more information on colony losses will be available as more beekeepers have a chance to assess their dead-outs and surviving colonies, the long hard winter, drought conditions in the summer, late mite reproduction conditions in the fall and thewet, late spring all contributed to what many beekeepers are reporting as one of the worst winters they haveever experienced in their beekeeping career. In tact, the beekeeping season in ZOz 1 -zz was very similar to the beekeeping season in 2012-13. Both started with and earlier spring that usual and the entire beekeeping season was highly irregular. In 2012,the bees appeared to thrive under the early spring conditions. Everything was progressing faster than normal and many beekeepers reported trying to play catch-up with the bees all year. The timing for queen demand and supply was abnormal, the timing formite treatment was abnormal, timing typically associated with swarming was abnormal and the timing and amount of artificial diet (i.e. syrup and pollen) fed to the bees to sustain the abnormally large population was also very unusual. The average colony loss in Manitoba in 2012-13 was estimated to be 46.4% when you included all the colonies that died during winter with the hives lost during spring.
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