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Date: | Sat, 27 Nov 2010 20:04:16 -0800 |
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?> These were either 48 or mostly 72 hour drops. I checked the fishiness vs
a powdered sugar "accelerated" drop immediately after taking the stickyboard
counts. There was a robust correlation with alcohol wash, so I dropped my
incredulity. And since that point have put little faith in one-shot
natural mite drops.
You are in good company in that regard, however let me turn this on its
head.
We assume that what we learn from alcohol washes is meaningful in terms of
providing us with information that can be predictive or assist us in
management. What they give is the number of adult varroa mites on bees in
the hive. We need more info to interpret that: time of year, amount of
brood, etc. etc.. One could ask, what do they not tell us? For one thing,
they do not tell us the age of the varroa and whether they are young or old.
Natural drops on the other hand tell us whether mites are falling down
through the hive, and how many. We can also see immatures and chewed mites
and other interesting things. Perhaps what we see on the board is more
predictive of important future events than washes?
When two measurement methods do not agree, rather than an inconvenience, we
have one of the great opportunities in science: an opportunity to reconcile
two observations which disagree, but -- according to our understanding --
should not.
From worrying about just such discrepancies, where others have simply
ignored inconvenient data, come some of the greatest scientific discoveries.
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