Over the past decade Virginia’s beekeepers strongly supported the national colony loss and management surveys through the Bee Informed Partnership (BIP). Prior to this, beekeepers supported a statewide survey. Together the surveys provide over 20 years of annual data on winter honey bee colony losses. The surveys also provided valuable information regarding beekeepers’ management practices and factors that affected their colony health and survival. BIP is reducing their services and is not expected to conduct a colony loss-management survey this year. We will again rely on a statewide survey to gather information on winter colony losses and management practices. Access to an online survey is provided below. It should require only 3 to 5 minutes to complete.
Please take a few minutes to let us know how many honey bee colonies you had at the beginning and end of winter. If you have more than one apiary, complete a separate survey for each of your apiaries. Apiaries within 1/2 mile distance of each other should be combined as a single apiary for your responses. Distribution of the survey link to other beekeepers in Virginia is appreciated.
The URL for accessing the “Winter Honey Bee Colony Loss Survey”:
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=qeUKYsFOoE-GQV2fOGxzCQRMmfE92mBPnStZV7RxBoNUNFYwRU05WDlRU0NKOVdZMEZGQUFIMzYwUS4u