2025: Tragedy in the beekeeping community.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Truly devastating news is being discovered in the beekeeping community, specifically in the commercial sector Sofar.
Join me as I break the news to Brit about the discovery and what I think could be the cause. There is a lot of things I don’t know, but we are ready and actively looking for ways to step in to help with testing via products, data collection or wherever we are asked to help out.
For those of you with connections my contact info can be found online on the contact use page of Lorobbees.com
I use the Lorob oa vaporizer. Do not pull too much honey. Put on emergency sugar board in the late fall to all. Have 11 out of 11 survival, so far, in Maryland backyard
Incredible news!
I attribute most of the success to my lorob vaborizer. If the bees are dead from varroa viruses, nothing else works
Rob, Thank You for your interest in this not just from a business standpoint but concerns of Shooks losses and making other beekeepers aware!!!!!!
Thanks, we started our business with a mission to help beekeepers be more successful. We will do what we can moving forward to help how we can.
Curious to hear what you guys find out in your market of customers.
I agree, we’re setting up a poll that we hope to make public on our website and follow up with our email list to see what feedback we can get.
Apivar hasn’t worked in several years and I no longer use it.
The combination of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides produce toxic cocktails.
Yeah, I’m on a hunch also that it’s a combination of a few bad scenarios that had led us to this demise on the commercial side of things
Been using your vaporizer since sept 2022 and bees have grown every year, no dead outs until this year, had a strong hive that starved due to me not leaving them enough food. Never used pesticides, OA vapor has been a game changer. Prayed for Jesus help, and prayers where answered:)
Glad to hear it!
North Central Ohio, 19 double deep colonies. Began beekeeping in 2016. The most I've ever had. This is the first year with zero loss!! Im pretty stoked to see the maples bloom.
Zero is incredible!!
@LorobBees I'm a lucky guy! Winters not done with us yet, but they all seem to be pretty heavy🤞🤷♂️
@ Heavy is the name of the game most of the time!! Fingers crossed!
I have lost 20 of 25 hives. I am in Iowa. This is the first year in 3 years of beekeeping that I have lost any bees. My losses started in the late summer after the honey harvest. I knew I was in for a bad winter when I saw that a lot of my hives werent brooding. None. I was feeding because it was a drought and still nothing. countless empty frames. lots of bee bread, honey etc. Just no brood. later i would check these colonies and find zero bees in them. Some hives and dead bees all over the front of the hive. Everyone was saying it was mites... I treat for mites. I started seeing more losses being reported in high numbers and all of a sudden people werent blaming only the mites. Finally now, I saw this report from Blake. I now know what ever happened to mine is probably the same thing that happened with these.
Sorry to hear about your losses, and I’m sure it’s linked together for that percentage of losses. Praying for you
Small commercial here out of central Florida, 750 colonies, had very good bees this year, average loss % around 10% or so, have 2 of your units and can say it’s really hard to use those on time when you’re one man operation. Been treating some yards 2-3 times in January and still have lots of mites in drone brood. Randy’s Oliver dribble method maybe more time consuming but I think it gives better results, at least that’s what I see for now in warm weather where we have lots of brood all year round
Great feedback, it is hard with constant brood levels to really punch them hard without brood breaks. Thanks for checking in!!
Hobbyist here. SE coastal VA- went into winter with 22 colonies, lost just 2. FYI.
Great to hear, generally a hive or two happens. I’m very curious if this problem affects just the larger operations. I think that’s the case based on what I’ve been hearing but we will see
Also Hobbyist SE coastal VA- (first year) split one Italian VSH into 5 hives with other commercial queens. Successfully wintered, so far all five.
Honestly, my thoughts *Bio-security*
(without pointing fingers too much) .
Think about it: what happened with citrus, the banana trees, coffee bean bugs, etc, etc.
This is not a one off issue by any means. No simple answer...
Watched that, now watching this, 👍keep the information flowing.
Mine are doing well atm, started Winer with 18 only down 4 and they were to small to cold.
Good stuff, glad to hear!
We are at about 80% loss now. We only run about 500 colonies. We don't have the numbers to sustain those type of losses
Could you email me? Lorobbees@gmail.com
I am in S.E. Missouri and went into winter with 70 colonies. I have lost 5 so far this winter, but winter is not over here. Four of the five were buried in snow and ice so I do not believe I am seeing this type of loss yet.
That’s promising, let’s hope that’s all of the losses you experience this season!
Here in MN I have lost one hive so far out of 18. Lots of winter left but so far no problems here. I use Apivar, OA strips and OAV multiple times.
Glad to hear you’re doing well up there in MN so far!
@@LorobBees Lol, and Russ and I are both running your InstaVap!
I hope it is not environmental! This past year was one of the strangest on record for me. Super early Spring followed by nothing but rain. Then we hit above ave temps all Summer long and had over 13 weeks of drought. One thing that makes me wonder is I am knocking on the door of being 60 years old and NEVER in my life have I ever heard of being able to see the Northern lights in WV !
We saw the northern lights up here in Baltimore a few weeks back. Quite strange for sure.
It would be useful to compare outfits that use OAV to ones using other chemicals. If OAV shows fewer loses, then that points to mites/virus issues. And pesticides would amplify the effect of viruses. So that may be why commercial is seeing more impacts than hobbyists (if that difference holds). Your hobbyist survey would really help with that. Perhaps add in distance to agricultural fields and if other products are used besides OAV in that survey?
That’s a similar thought that I have, I think gauging the hobbyist will help out a lot. It will be very interesting to see how the OAV customers are affected or not. Stay tuned!
I’m in south central Virginia and to date zero losses. 24 hives. I had a bad experience with Apivar in 2023.I didn’t use it in 2024.
That’s incredible!!
I checked mine last weekend after the thaw here in WV I still have 63/69 that are alive and viable.
That’s a good survival percentage. Let’s hope that that continues!
Too many questions to answer before this will get me excited. Sounds isolated to one group of bee growers?🤔
Surely feels like one size or so based on what I’ve seen. I’m curious about location and environmental factors. Very curious to see how this develops
The beekeeping community needs to take lessons from infectious disease therapies that deal with potential resistance. Combined therapies that target differs things in the pathogen is the way to go. I really think that some of the problems are due to people just not knowing what they are using or fully understanding how to use it. I am, with all due respect, surprised that neither of you are truly familiar with amitraz. This is part of the problem, we ALL need to understand what to expect from the treatments we use and that you can't just assume efficacy, you need to verify. Love you products, go a compact for Christmas and it is a BEAST!!!!
I agree completely, my style is definitely admitting when I don’t know, and being open to learn and be schooled.
I do agree with pushing education, some of that is difficult expecially on the hobbyist side because of the turnover each year, and some just don’t go far enough to learn topics until they need to know and retain that part of the information.
I’ve gotten really good at the product side of beekeeping so I’m hoping that that is where I can help show my support to make sampling and testing faster and more efficient.
PS,, a compact for Christmas is a heck of a present!! Congrats!!
Couldn't have said it better!!!
*It's a collaborated effort & understanding*
Not pointing fingers here, either. No disrespect.
I have witnessed here on TH-cam many of beekeepers miss informed or otherwise use products incorrectly or dangerous even!!!
Example: Not reading the Full Label 🤯
I completely agree. There are so many heartbreaking stories about beekeepers who learn the basics of beekeeping through TH-cam. (Not all of them are successful, and not all of them are unsuccessful.) However, if they start with incorrect information, it can be devastating to their success. That’s why I don’t mind admitting when I don’t know the details. I want people to know where my knowledge is so that they can help me learn as well. I also want to share information and help in any way I can, while trying to avoid doing any harm to beekeepers with misinformation.
@@LorobBees your comment warmed my heart! Humility & one's ability to continually learn how to nurture... Are getting harder to find it feels 😔.
This letter & story might not be the full story, as another commenter (from Canada) has already pointed out.
The Gambit that you may run here; may come with immense pressure. So please, take care of yourself! 🙏
I entered fall with 13 colonies, lost one before winter started (expected because the dummies swarmed in the fall), and as of last week I still have 12 hives going strong. I run single deeps with a honey super and in insulated and condensing hives (beemax). This is in Upstate, NY.
Losses are rough and they suck. Feel bad for the keepers.
East Tennessee here, backyard beekeeper, i went into winter with 13 colonies, 1 double , 2 five frames , 1 two frames and the rest are singles, i lost the two frames it was an experiment anyway.
I treated with oa dribble in the fall i fed them well plus sugar camp and used insulation on the small nucs.
small sideliner here (formerly 105 hives). Last summer my bees were doing great here in N. Utah. I had built up my colonies to 105. Treatments and testing proceeded as normal. Honey production was lower than expected. I believed that it was due to a late spring snow storm in our area in the middle of June that wiped out most of the bloom at the time. Then we went without any rain until the end of August. Into the honey pull for this area I was very careful to not pull to much. Hives for the most part at that time were still showing strong bee levels and mite counts were not excessive, 3 or less in most hives. I treated with OA again immediately after the honey pull. I started seeing empty and dead hives in the middle of September. By the end of October I had lost nearly half of my hives. I ended up having 60 strong hives to send to California for the winter.
Very nervous to see what we get back in the next month or so.
Ouch! Any idea what crops are local to your hives? Maybe some yards that had better survival than others based on location? Seems like the more hives people have the more they get impacted.
@@LorobBees My hives are spread around 5 yards. Some are in river bottoms, some alfalfa, some corn that is used for silage, and dry farming (wheat and some other grains). All suffered mostly equal losses. Other local commercial keepers also experienced similar losses. they keep bees in a wider area, southern idaho, western wyoming, northwestern utah.
It also seems like similar losses are being experienced in Oregon. saw this video last month discussing it. th-cam.com/video/jIncE9pDZjY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ZmUH3bkVEk1jyfmh
No one verifies, if there is a survival variance between moved hives and stationary hives, for sideliners.
I’m super curious too on that topic
I've lost 3 of 8. This past year has been very tough.
Shew, I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s hope that’s the most of the losses you see
I own a Bee Supply Store in SE MI, second season with your vaporizer. I've been told by the backyard beekeepers that some have lost half. (1-2, 2-4). As of this past Monday, I am still 29 out of 29. Big believer of the OA process. I actually just did one treatment Monday.
Shew, let’s hope half isn’t the average across the board with backyard beekeepers.
@LorobBees a lot of them don't believe in using anything for the varroa. Or they just don't test and treat like they should. There's not a single right way to be a beekeeper. But there's a lot of ways to be a bad one.
Theory: Commercial beeks can treat hundreds of hives but they can't possibly inspect them all to gauge efficacy. If Apivar resistance has developed (like it did for coumaphos and fluvalinate in the early 2000s) the commercial ops would be the first to see massive spikes in winter die-outs as the mites take over.
Solid theory, I really think making testing for mites easier and faster is the key to help them keep a better eye on things
I found it interesting that the 2023 hive report showed for the first time Backyard and sideliners had higher survival rates than commercial. This really points to Ag chemicals being the issue.
That’s what I’m thinking too,
Hobbyist turning sideliner here in central KY. Going into my 4th year I'm currently running 54 colonies. Knock on wood I've yet to lose a hive through the winter. I treat exclusively with Apiguard and using the instavap OA. The only thing that's sprayed around my apiaries is fungicide. The same farmer owns most of the land around me. If he has to spray he only does it after dark. The plants have plenty of time to soak that stuff up and the bees never touch it by the time the Sun rises.
Small business beekeeper in Central Connecticut. I have successfully treating with Formic acid late summer and OAV mid winter (a day over 50 F).
Spring 2024 15 of 15 survival.
Lost 10 hives in fall 2024. Bad hive management. High mites, robbing, starvation
East Texas- grapeland
I have 63 colonies, I only treat with OA through extended release sponges and Lorob bees vaporizer.
I lost one colony and had 2 nucs just this week go queen less.
The colonies look good and healthy and the queens are laying like crazy right now.
I treated with sponges all year off and on and then done vaporizer treatments in December.
I will be putting sponges on in the next 2 weeks.
Small bee keeper here in ky with 14 hives 10 of them double deeps and 4 singles treated with o a in October then treated again in dec have been using sugar bricks with honey bee heathy and amino bee booster added have not had any losses yet
Fingers crossed your bees stay healthy! Thanks for checking in!
That's a huge loss. That means a lot of crops are not going to get pollinated this year. Please keep us up to date on the outcome. I'll do whatever I can to help
I'm in central alabama
Yes, it’s an extremely sad situation across the board. We’re hoping to help them find the cause as soon as possible in any possible way we may be able to help
Are these chemicals getting permeating the wood of the hive boxes both internal and external?
There was a longer autumn weather in a lot of places: The bees may have gotten into same thing they normally wouldn’t have due to cold weather.(post harvest fall spraying)Even in Canada there was bee losses but what about Europe? Is this a North American Continent issue?
Talk to some commercial bee keepers and get it straight from the horses mouth not second hand.
The capabilities of the bee might have reached a ceiling of what they are capable of doing under these stresses of pollution. Their are more Cooperate farming(armchair farmers ) need there numbers to look good for their stock holders, workers, equipment, soil and crops are pushed beyond limits because Mother Nature is not on the payroll.
Little FYI if a crop is going to be harvested for seed it can’t be sprayed with roundup because it drastically reduces the germination rate and farmers have to use different herbicides that might not be friendly ( human warning labels )Wetter spring more fungus. I think it was a perfect storm and bees went into shock, couldn’t fight off what they normally could. You can only push livestock to a certain point and each year is different can’t become complacent.Hot and cold weather stressors and feed nutritional value due to weather extremes.
Some very interesting and solid discussion points! Thanks!
If the chemicals are permeating the hive bodies and there is more than 1 chemical being used during the season,could they be combining and creating something that is toxic to the bees?
FYI, I have lost 1 this winter (that I believe was queenless) out of 25 hives and 6 double deep nucs.
I have often thought there should be a national website to report losses It should be a extensive questionnaire I am not much on gov oversite but this could bee extremely catastrophic some day. I don't think they ever found the true cause of CCD. IMHO every body who can should share their losses if you have 1 hive or 5000 I could be wrong but I don't think it was 139 mil in bee losses i think they included lost pollination of food.
You have some good points, I also believe the sample should be across the board. On a “map” basis we should be able to see effected areas and draw easier conclusions
I went into January with 6 hives, after the 2 cold snaps, lost one... food reserves were on the other side of the hive, combo of cold, and not being close enough to the resources is my assumption of my losses. I presume splits should recover my loss quickly.
Gotcha, Sofar that’s tracking with others. A split in spring will cover that one loss easily. Thanks for checking in!!
OA treatment, no losses.
To loose 80% of your bugs it should be easy to find. One common finding I bet.
I run around 20 colonies each year. I normally lose about 2 colonies each “winter” I’m in South Texas. I don’t treat my bees with anything.
I am convinced that people aren’t taking care of varroa in time.
Also, I had an issue with amitraz last year. I feel like it weakened my queens. I can’t prove amitraz is the problem, but I had 50% queen failures within 2 months of amitraz. I’m personally never using it again. Since I started doing monthly oxalic vaping, I haven’t had any problems.
I’ll also add that amitraz isn’t supposed to be used with honey supers on. Though the USDA approved OAV with supers a few years ago, I just remove them, vape them and put them back on. Better safe than sorry!
Interesting, I personally don’t have any first hand experience with amitraz, I went for OAV at the start of my beekeeping journey and never left. Thanks for checking in!
@ I tell people, just because they approved. It does not mean that’s the ideal time of year to use oxalic acid vaporization for the best result. The high brood levels make it very hard to yield strong kills
@ I feel like doing the one treatment every 3-5 days over an entire brood cycle will get about 99% of the mites, then you can just maintain them. If you do every 30 days after the initial round, you’re overlapping brood cycles. I am convinced it works! But I don’t have hard data to back it. I do alcohol washes and am within the threshold with monthly treatments at this point.
Last year was a first year bee keeping. After my formic pro treatment my hives(2) were so weak they were robbed out and died. We want to try oa treatment equipment but the price point is a little harder for us to justify also
OAV is an investment out of the gate, and hard to justify for a pair of hives. Once you get to 5-10 or more it becomes a lot more affordable per colony. We have a lot of customers who chose us for just a single box for ease of use, and their theory is it was immediately profitable as long as their bees overwintered and they didn’t have to spend the money to re buy their bees.
We did come out with a new Lite model that runs on the small more affordable batteries and is roughly $100-$200 less then the larger units and ideal for people less then 20 hives.
Also, we have so many units in production most clubs have several members running our units, you may find a barter opportunity for getting your bees treated. And some people even offer it as a service (with proper paperwork, depending on your states regulation).
But I would 100% reach out to your local club to see if there are options for you to utilize a vaporizer through ways I mentioned above.
Here in West Central Illinois. 5th year beekeeping. down 3 out of 26. Use Apivar and OA. similar % last year. One of the losses was mice, the other was probably just a week hive going into winter. did have a pretty strong hive dead out and not sure why...
couple other hobby beekeepers in our area I talked to...lost 2 of his 4, another lost 5 of 18.
Western Catskills in NY....hard cold windy winter...quick check..looks like 3 out of 17 are not going to make it...I have a feeling it's a queen and colony size problem as I had a lot of late (Sept) swarms this year.
Interesting, that’s not a bad ratio either, fingers crossed that they pull through!!
@ still have 2 months or so to go😬
no; sideliners & hobbyist individuals affected too
I just haven’t seen the percentages in conversation with the hobbyist group Sofar, though our poll hasn’t gone out.
Do you have any polls of the hobbyist that I have missed that you can link so I can do some digging?
@@LorobBees youtube.com/@thebeesmith9746?si=yrQ7F3_S7yoSR7v0
He’s out of Chico Ca
There have been no hobbiest or sideliner polls done.
I believe ApisM had a section for 500 or less hive owner beekeepers but the survey makes it sound like they only want to talk to commercial beeks
@@LorobBeesI just fB messaged; I see I have to email
As of two weeks ago, 27 of 29 colonies were still alive here in southeast Iowa. Might lose a few more. Have never used amitraz for a mite treatment.
That’s good news so far, let’s hope it stays that way! And you don’t have any more losses
We are here in central wisconsin and has been very cold. We went into winter with 73 and it looks like we have lost about 8 so far. Will probably lose 15 by the time spring rolls around. Not great, but not the losses that commercial guys are looking at.
That’s some of the worst percentages in the thread, how big were the boxes going into winter? What kind of crops are grown near you?
@LorobBees what do you mean? That is only a 11% loss so far. I run almost all of my colonies in single deeps. The fall was long and drawn out with little food after Oct 15 so we had to feed quite a bit.
@@hamburghoney OMG!! You are spot on. I was in the middle of still waking up and thought I saw a much smaller starting number. 10%+\- is not extremely alarming in the current situation, though obviously not ideal.
Sorry for my error there. Trying to digest everyone’s info from overnight
@@LorobBees that's not a problem at all. It is still early for a Saturday. What are us nerds doing watching and talking about bees at 7am on a Saturday?
I dont think a moment goes by that I’m not talking, texting or thinking about bees haha. The fun of loving what you do
Commercial here.. 45 years. amatraz free for 20 + years. It's more than that.
Mites, viruses, and nutrition.
What kind of losses have you seen and how many hives do you all run currently?
I went into winter with three hives and all three are still here as of today. Has anyone checked if Tropilaelaps is the culprit to the large bee loss?
Tropilaelaps is not on North America... yet.
We’re hoping it doesn’t make landfall, there have been talks behind the scenes on actions against it if it does. But we’re hoping that’s a battle we don’t have coming down the pipe.
I can appreciate your comment & questioning here!
And those here in this messaging together!
My opinion & please no hate. We're just discussing cordially.
What have we done as a whole *To Prepare*.?!
Are we as a group prepared for this possibility even? Might fellow beekeepers yet know of the possibility? Heck, what about the screening methods??? Look perhaps at "rapid cell cap removal" using a body hair wax strip, if you'd like to see.?! 🙏 Take care all!
@@e.l.1303 I hope that you’re right but is anyone 100% sure?
15 hives around Greensboro North Carolina, using Lorob Vaporizer, as of Feb 6, 2025 zero losses.
Great news!
If you drill a 1/4” hole in the rear of your brood chambers, the InstantVap nozzle fits perfectly. So I don’t see how the “time is money” applies to using amitraz. I can knock out my 10 hives in about 15 minutes with my vaporizer. It would take me longer to take boxes off, find the brood and put a strip 2 strips of amitraz, then time it so they get 2 rounds in a 42 day period. It also contaminates your equipment. It’s just garbage.
I absolutely love my InstantVap. I want one of each of them!
I’m with you on that one, OAV is so quick and non invasive that’s why I don’t have any personal experience using much of anything else, and also why we have dedicated all we do towards making the units as good and fast as possible
Please Please use a lavelier microphone when you have important audio you want us to hear.
I agree, this was a first in the morning thing that we didn’t plan for, I will note the importance in future footage. That was a concern for me as well when I watched it back during review/editing.
they stopped the chem trails hope that helps
Anything helps at this rate
Wife and I have. A small commercial operation, we raise bees just for honey. Lost several hives recently without and apparent explanation
That’s not good, how many hives? In total and how many are lost?
@ twelve total, two, possibly three lost