I'll throw out the following for review and comment: This August, one of my hives had what I first thought was European Foulbrood (bad brood pattern, and dead shrunken larvae in cells). An ether roll test got 10 Varroa mites/300 bees (~1% infection rate). The ether roll test results were about what I expected, as the colony had been treated with Apistan early this spring. The dead larvae were still white, everything was dry, and August was a dry month. One of our bee inspectors declared the problem to be the early stages of Parasitic Mite Syndrome (PMS, and I hope somebody thinks of a better acronym). Apistan strips were installed, and the problem had cleaned up when I next visited the colony 6 weeks later. Everything seems to fit the descriptions of PMS that I have read, except the low mite count on the ether roll survey. Anybody out there have similar experiences? W. G. Miller Gaithersburg, MD