-- James Fischer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>"... No. They later did a better study later which refuted that claim..."

really?  the first sentence of the abstract to the later better study is:

"Abstract - Varroa destructor preferentially invades larger honey bee brood cells."
http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/apido/abs/2004/04/M4012/M4012.html

the discussion section of the paper itself starts with:

"We had expected that there would be fewer V. destructor in the smaller brood cells in the old combs than in the relatively larger brood cells in the new combs, as previous experiments had indicated a positive correlation between cell size and infestation rate (Message and Goncalves, 1995; Piccirillo and De Jong, 2003).  Indeed, the tendancy towards higher infestation in wider cells was maintained for each type of comb"

and continues with:

"The old comb cells were four to over five times as infected as the new brood comb cells, when the same 1/10mm cell width intervals were compared).
http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/apido/pdf/2004/04/M4012.pdf

in  fact, if you look at table II in the paper, you will see that old comb in the 4.51-4.6mm range had almost as low an infestation rate as new comb in the 4.81-4.9mm range....and that among each type of comb (old and new), the infestation rate rises sharply with cell size.   we have no way to know how this curve looks when extended to 5.4mm without experimenting.


>Has to be a typo, 

yes, my apologies..it was a typo.

i submit that the later paper does not contradict the earlier one...that the authors still maintain that larger cells attract more mites, and that the age of brood comb is another, separate factor....and that their published data supports this.  i also submit that both of the studies, though interesting, measure the attractiveness of different sizes and ages of comb to mites, but do not deal with the effects in terms of mite population/reproduction dynamics in the real world (ie, how in a similar environment, hives with old, new, big, small comb would fare against the mites)...which is really the important question.

but really, it isn't a long read (and the link is above)...everyone should read this study and decide for yourselves what the authors are saying.

deknow

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