Calculating and reporting managed honey bee colony losses
Résumé
Quantifying colony losses is a two-part process. First, colony loss data needs to be collected by surveying beekeepers and then it needs to be calculated and reported in a standardized way. We propose using two different ways to calculate and communicate colony losses. The first we term the total colony losses, sometimes referred to as cumulative loss rate in other systems, which aggregates all losses suffered by all beekeepers surveyed. While the total loss calculation is straightforward, calculating a 95% CI for this metric is complicated by the need to account for the varying sizes of responding beekeepers operations and the nested nature of colony losses within those operations. The second reporting method is average loss is the mean loss suffered by each responding beekeeper. The utility of these two reporting mechanisms differ, in that both are potentially biased by the demographics of the apicultural industry; total loss figures are more heavily influenced by the losses experienced by the few large operations, while average losses are more representative of the many small operations. Additionally, it is important to note that the results from this survey are representative of the responding population alone, and cannot be considered representative of the industry unless some means of identifying and adjusting for varying response is performed.