> we can we not crush up a few larva from healthy and sick hives and see
what levels they are really getting fed? 

Ah ha!

THE astute question has at last been asked!
[Sound of the 100 Kazoo Marching Band playing a march by John Phillip
Kazooza, balloons dropping, blonds in sequined evening gowns rolling out
fabulous prizes from behind the curtain...]

Yes, testing the levels in the larvae would be... much more...  definitive.
And it is possible, it is just a tad more tedious than counting emerged
adults versus larvae fed.

"Tedious" would involve someone to sit and watch the (observation) hive, and
stop any bee removing or starting to cannibalize a dead larvae.  They'd have
to do it in shifts.  I'm not sure that the larvae are going to show visible
symptoms of sickness, or even show visible symptoms of being dead.

But one can eliminate the bees entirely and hand-raise the larvae, feeding
them with small metered pumps.  You'd have to harvest the "royal jelly" from
another colony to feed to the test colony, but a large amount of brood is
not needed.  One could automate the process, monitor the level of brood food
in each cell, and fill as needed.  I built a similar gizmo over a decade ago
- an automatic seed planter for a friend with a commercial greenhouse and a
giant stack of starting trays that planted seeds at precise distances using
an old pen-plotter mechanism and a tiny vacuum pipette to pick up one seed
at a time, push it into the potting soil, and then blow a puff of air
(solenoids!) to cover the seed.

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