Bob made good points, as we all expect him to:

> Dr. Delaplane at Savannah explained that the *figures* presented
> in the post applied to an *average* strength hive...

And what makes an "average" strength hive?  The only consistent metric
I have seen for measuring strength is "number of frames of brood".

What might have been more useful would have been:

a)  A set of "threshold for a colony with x frames of brood" type figures.
    (Some sort of "weak", "normal", and "strong" differentiation.)

b)  Some sort of "delta brood" versus "delta mites" figures, as this
     is the only way to estimate mites "getting out of hand" versus
     a mite population that has merely increased numerically, and
     not excessively in contrast to bee population growth.

Dunno why Delaplane and Hood did not qualify their data this way,
since they were certain to have a mix of "strong", "average", and
"weak" hives in their dataset.

> ...in *fall* in Georgia with a certain amount of leeway ( tests taken
> after most brood rearing had stopped).

Wait until AFTER brood rearing stops to test for mites?
Isn't that just a bit late in the game?
By then, any colonies with serious varroa infestation are dead or doomed,
and the varroa population clearly cannot further increase.
The surviving colonies, lacking brood, would be difficult to "size" on
anything other than a gestalt basis (number of top bars covered with bees?).

I was under the impression that the mission-critical decision to make comes
well before fall, and involves pulling a colony out of production to "save" it.
This decision must be made well prior to harvest, when varroa counts are
ramping up to a serious level in contrast to the colony bee population, or
ramping up faster than any increase in bee population could explain away.

Of course, at the current price of honey, one is forced to wonder where the
financial "break-even" point has moved, where leaving colonies in production,
and then replacing varroa kills with fall splits would be "smarter management".


                jim

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