"Some phenomena are reproducible, some are not."

It is not science until you can quantify it with math to a reasonable extent.  I have seen various specialties in science that were labeled "art" because no one bothered to try and understand the math.  Once you understood the math you could do things on purpose routinely that the "art" guys could not do except by rare accident.  But, not everything is solvable by math.  As has been so well demonstrated over the last 40 years some equations simply lead to chaotic solutions.  Weather is a great example.  It has been claimed a butterfly flapping its wings in Tokyo could eventually impact the weather in New York.  As far fetched as that seems it is true.  Anyone who thinks that is not true simply does not know much math.

I find Randy's math model of mite build up very valuable.  It makes no difference if his data fit any hive I own and most likely it will not.  Surely I have some hives that do a little bit of mite control.  Surely some hives find the neighbors crashing hives that are chuck full of mites and bring some home more than other hives.  Those kinds of effects will lead to large differences over the course of a season.  Still, the model gives me an excellent idea of what to do to deal with mites and I must say what I learned from spending a bunch of hours playing what if with it has reduced my winter death rate.  So, even a less than perfect model can be of real value.

Dick

             ***********************************************
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