> Agreed, which is why I was doing both at the same time.  However, if the
> intent is to determine if the mite infestation rate has reached a treatment
> threshold, I'm leery of natural drop.

Then the question arises: what is the best indicator of the need for 
treatment?  It seems to me that we are using tests, none of which 
directly measure that condition. There may in  fact be no way of 
knowing, as evidenced by some who routinely run at mite levels above the 
benchmarks with apparent impunity.  These measurements are _assumed_ to 
be surrogates, but there is no real proof that they have any close and 
immediate correlation to what we want to know.

Alcohol wash does not reflect accurately the total mite infestation in a 
hive unless those numbers are combined with knowledge about the amount 
of brood in the hive, the season, the phase of the moon and who is going 
to win the World Series. In other words, the number must be interpreted, 
and history has shown that no threshold above zero can predict the 
outcome with certainty.

The same is true of drop counts.

I find the arguments for preferring washes over drops to be circular.

"Washes are good because they can be compared to mite wash benchmarks."

We know the benchmarks to be very unreliable in any one specific 
instance.  Moreover, benchmarks have proven too high time and time again 
and had to be lowered.

In the early years of varroa, we managed a large commercial operation -- 
3,500 hives -- using only drops as a monitoring method and AFAIK, never 
lost a hive to varroa during that time.  It was dead simple the way we 
did it whether supers were on or not, and we could hire non-beekeeping 
students to do them, and we did.  They slipped in the boards, came back 
later and then counted the results.  In one instance, the hives and 
students were 160 miles away from us and we got results by phone.

Since then, as a "hobby" beekeeper, and having forsaken my former 
methods --  partly due to being influenced by those advocating the wash 
and the difficulty in doing washes in a timely fashion on hives in 3 to 
5 boxes after my management changed -- I have lost hives.  In one case 
the loss was 100%.

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

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm