Allen said,

OK.  If we look at it differently, and consider the _area_ under the lines in
your chart and mine, which represents real total mite death, rather  than
the _baseline_, which has an indeterminate meaning, then it seems clear
to me that the total  mite fall in the hives under observation here is much
greater than your model predicts.

A question, Did you have a control treatment to determine how many mites left in after your oxalic treatment? In most experiments run  to determine efficacy, we use what is called a finishing treatment. This treatment is done using a miticide with efficacy more than 95% such Apivar for 42 days. After collecting all mites during the 42 days. This will represent what is left after the initial treatment (e.g. oxalic acid). Thus, we will be able to get a relative efficacy to known product.

We are working with a biological system under natural conditions. This type of research system is different from a research done in laboratory. Under laboratory conditions we used to get 100 mites in a Petri dish and expose them to a miticide. Then, we count how many dead mites after 24 h exposure. In this case we have also untreated control and count natural dead mites during the 24 h. With math and statistics we can adjust mortality to estimate the efficacy.

Generalizations and assumption have to be handled carefully!

Food for thoughts. Medhat Nasr
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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