Welcome to NY Bee Wellness, your source for maintaining healthy honey bee colonies

an educational nonprofit program to teach beekeepers honey bee disease recognition & to promote honey bee health

2014 Survey

Survey Spring 2014 

New York Bee Wellness

 207 non-migratory beekeepers reporting

            2281 Sum of colonies in November 2013

               1235         Sum of colonies in April  2014 (loss of 1046)

                  11   Average # of honey bee colonies per beekeeper  (range   1-170 colonies):

10.98 average # of colonies in November

               5.93 average # of colonies in April

             46%         average loss

    Cold (42%) and starvation (29%) top 2 reported causes of colony death.

             

 

Alphabetical List of NY State Counties;  50 (~80%) reported

Albany  8
Allegany
Bronx
Broome 1
Cattaraugus 1
Cayuga 4
Chautauqua 6
Chemung 1
Chenango
Clinton
Columbia 2
Cortland 1
Delaware 3
Dutchess 5
Erie 10
Essex

Franklin 2
Fulton
Genesee  2
Greene  5
Hamilton
Herkimer  4
Jefferson  1
Kings (Brooklyn)  1
Lewis  1
Livingston  2
Madison  5
Monroe  26
Montgomery  1
Nassau  2
New York (Manhattan)
Niagara 2

Oneida  6
Onondaga  8
Ontario  6
Orange  3
Orleans
Oswego  6
Otsego 2
Putnam
Queens  1
Rensselaer  2
Richmond (Staten Island)  1
Rockland  1
Saratoga  3
Schenectady
Schoharie  3
Schuyler  3

Seneca  1
Steuben 2
St. Lawrence  6
Suffolk  1
Sullivan  2
Tioga  3
Tompkins  19
Ulster  9
Warren
Washington  4
Wayne  9
Westchester 1
Wyoming  7
Yates 2

Some respondent comments:

-”Honey/ pollen flows were poor in late summer/ early fall of 2013 so bees went into winter light. That would have been O.K. in normal winter. Winter of 2013/14 was coldest ever observed so stores were exhausted. “

-“ saved honey from the fall and started feeding them in Feb. since it was such a bad winter. They would have died if I had not given them sugar cakes and the extra honey. “

-“100% of colonies in a styrofoam hives survived. The only losses I had were in wooden hives “

-”I am a newbie. This is my 2nd yr. I am happy to say my 2 hives appear alive and thriving. Other than that, I don’t have too much info to offer. “

-”Installed 2 new 3 lb. packages on March 31, 2014. I intend to use pulled comb & honey stores from dead outs to aid new packages. “

Bears were reported in almost all counties with the exception of the NYC metro area/Long Island and the south and southeast shore of Lake Ontario (Niagara, Wayne, Oswego counties).

Note- further refinement of the results is possible , please contact me for info.

NYBeeWellness.org, P. Bono, Rochester NY, nybeewellness@gmail.com

Results of the 2013-2014 Beeinformed Survey (link)

Survey Graphics

New_York_Counties bear report

Bear reports by county; Note- some counties did not report, so are left blank

Reason for lossmite treatment