David Eyre wrote:
 Perhaps in future we should all keep our
> *observations* to ourselves?  The old beekeepers used to do this
> before Bee-L and the information age, from which we all benefit.
>         Therefore, I would suggest criticism for the sake of
criticism, is
> distructive rather than constructive.

Hi David and everyone,

The reason that others have asked about control colonies and pointed
out the need for them is really simple.  If you have no comparison you
don't know if your observed outcome ( low varroa populations ) is
actually due to your treatment or something else in the environment of
those honey bee colonies.  Your observations of low varroa populations
are valid within the limits of your testing methods but you have no
basis to determine the cause of those low populations without control
colonies.  You used apistan to treat for varroa mites which could
fully explain your observations.  As for the lower populations in
mating nucs that is what I would expect based on the biology involved
i.e. these are small colonies that never raised much brood and had
frequent breaks in broodrearing.  Under these conditions varroa
populations are unable to build up quickly due to the breaks in
broodrearing and may even decline.  I would expect the varroa
populations to be considerably lower in the nucs than in full sized
colonies in the same location.  Your treatments may work but based on
your observations you cannot conclude that they are actually working
without the use of untreated controls.  The use of untreated controls
does not necessarly mean that those colonies would die only that they
would be untreated during the experiment ( summer ) and treatment
applied at the end of the observation period when comparative data
would be collected.  We are not being critical for the sake of
criticism but pointing out why your conclusions are not justified by
your data ( observations).

Let us keep our conclusions within our data or we will be lead
astray.

blane


******************************************
Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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