Data mining hive inspections: more frequently inspected honey bee colonies have higher over-winter survival rates

Honey bee colonies frequently suffer from high over-winter losses attributed to various factors, including management, poor nutrition, pests, pathogens, and parasites. Most beekeepers have only limited control over these factors. This study looks at the role of the number and timing of hive inspections in relation to over-winter losses, which beekeepers can largely control. The impact of hive inspections on over-winter survival is usually difficult to measure in traditional studies due to confounding factors, including geography, sample size, and variability in practices. This study mines data collected, anonymized and shared from an apiary management software system and includes data from 4,072 hives managed by 717 beekeepers across the continental United States (U.S.) over a five-year period from (2013-2018), consisting of 60,920 inspections to identify the relationship between hive inspections and over-winter survival. Hives are grouped into nine climate zones deemed similar by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), and inspections were grouped by season for analysis. Results suggest that more frequent hive inspections are associated with higher over-winter survival rates across most U.S. regions. Unexpectedly, this also includes having relatively more inspections during the winter months in every region. Also, surprisingly only one of the nine climatic regions had significantly different average over-winter survival rates despite the significant geographic and climate difference across the continental U.S. This finding suggests that other factors like management actions may be more important to over-winter survival rates than climate. Finally, this inspection analysis shows that the number of inspections performed by beekeepers is a relevant factor in predicting over-winter hive mortality.