Allen said:

> One of my main concerns is that, if done in the fall, after
> brood has hatched, such extreme and repeated manipulation
> of the hives, even without the spraying, would result in at
> least 50% subsequent losses over winter.

I assume that this is your personal experience, but is there
any data in support of this statement as a general truth?
If it can be shown to be a "general truth", this is one of the
more important factors that can impact overwintering.

If you have the records, we could run a statistical pass,
and see if your results really do say what you feel they say.

Here where winters are much less harsh, I have seen no
correlation between "late manipulations" and colony survival,
but my sample size is not as large as yours was, and we never
do much "manipulation" so late.  We certainly do not pull each
and every frame out and swing it around.  :)


> I don't get the same result when I do the numbers.

Your math is right. You'd have 3% or so left after
3 passes of a 68% kill, not 1%  To end up with 1%,
you'd need around an 88% kill rate.


        jim (In theory, theory is the same
         as practice, but not in practice)

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