>  Any beekeeper knows treating mites on bees with  alcohol  does not have the same effects as powdered sugar for treatment. I hate the sugar for a simple reason,  when your done,  if you shook hard enough to get the mites,  those bees are pissed.

I am not sure what you are getting at here. With sugar the bees are pissed, with the alcohol they are dead. I prefer the ether roll because it's less messy and more thorough, but most people prefer sugar because the bees don't die



My point was that despite the work cited,  anyone who has seriously checked knows the 2 methods are NOT equally effective.  Not even sure how you could fudge the info that far.  Either they were doing a lousy job on the alcohol wash,  or beating the bees to complete death with sugar.    Work that shows them equal in my OPINION is just as bad as Lu's work in the area of intellectual dishonesty.

There is another factor here, in engineering we call it Gage R&R for range and repeatability.  Sugar does not pass repeatability standards.    If they were testing bees that both methods failed the range criteria,  then possibly you could extrapolate they were similar.  

Range portion means you cant use a method that is not capable of measuring as fine as you need.  General rule of thumb is 10%. Meaning you would need a measuring system that missed less than 10% of your totals to be considered acceptable.


For example  lets say you tested a sample with sugar (300 bees)  and get 12 mites  that would be 4% infestation,  so you rewash in Alcohol and get lets say 3 more mites  meaning actual infestation of 5%  many would say that measurement is within range of the same.     But in fact its not even close to acceptable.  Some would say it’s a 1% error.   Actually it’s a 25% error as you have to compare it to the mite levels checked,  not the total number of bees.  The 10% number applies to the number you are measuring,  not the sample size.  And of course the lower your mite level threshold is, the better that measurement system has to be.  IE if your only worried about a 8% infestation your measurement does not have to be as good as someone who is looking for anything above say 3%.



As for my comment on pissed bees,  I normally have several hives in a yard.  I also almost always work without PPE.  Not a good idea with sugar, in my experiences.


FYI  I learned last year while doing some washes for a friend,  the type of alcohol matters also.  We had be using isoproypal from the drug store,  and working fine.  I found a gallon size of wood alchol cheaper and easier to use.  Problem is,  the smell of the wood alcohol fires up the yard and you get very pissy bees.  Not something I would have seen,  I can't smell the difference,  but rest assured the bees can!

Charles

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