Honey bee colonies for operations with 5 or more colonies in Wisconsin as of January 1, 2020, totaled 16,000 colonies. This is 3% below the 16,500 colonies on January 1 last year, and 65% below the 46,000 colonies during the October-December 2019 quarter. Producers boosted their January 1 inventory by moving colonies into Wisconsin and adding colonies to a maximum of 26,000 during the January-March 2020 quarter. Since January 2019 the July-September 2019 quarter had the largest maximum number of colonies, with 63,000, while the January-March 2019 quarter had the smallest maximum number of colonies with 17,000.
Honey bee colonies lost for operations with 5 or more colonies for the January-March 2020 quarter was 1,500 colonies or 6%. This was 16 percentage points below the same period last year and 12 percentage points below losses reported during the October-December 2019 quarter. Since January 2019 the largest percentage of the colonies lost, at 22%, occurred in the January-March 2019 quarter. The largest number of colonies lost was 8,500 colonies and occurred in the October-December 2019 quarter.
Varroa mites were the number one stressor for operations with 5 or more colonies since January 2019. Producers reported that varroa mites affected 9.0% of Wisconsin’s honey bee colonies for the January-March 2020 quarter. The July-September 2019 quarter showed the highest percentage affected by varroa mites at 46.4%.
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