Randy wrote
> In my study, there was lots of bee and mite drift, but it wasn't associated with the collapse of colonies.

This was also the conclusion of Goodwin et al: 

> The literature cites two views regarding correlation between worker bee drift and varroa infestation. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether the reinfestation of colonies is due to varroa increasing the rate with which workers drift from infested colonies into neighbouring colonies.

> There were no significant differences (P > 0.1) between the percentage of drifting bees from the varroa-infested colonies and the treated colonies at any stage throughout the trial. This suggests that the reinfestation of treated colonies does not predominantly result from heavy varroa infestations causing worker bees to drift to other colonies, more than they generally do in practically varroa-free ones. This supports Neumann et al. (2000). The normal level of drift in apiaries will, however, spread varroa from untreated to treated colonies. This observation supports the practice of treating all colonies in an apiary simultaneously.

> As a large number of the painted bees did not drift into other hives in the apiary or die in their own hive, we cannot surmise where the bees went who were marked or otherwise from dying colonies. 

Goodwin, R. M., Taylor, M. A., Mcbrydie, H. M., & Cox, H. M. (2006). Drift of Varroa destructor-infested worker honey bees to neighbouring colonies. JOURNAL OF APICULTURAL RESEARCH AND BEE WORLD, 45(3), 155.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html