> 1. my reading of the report on your website led me to believe that all the hsc hives were dead.

We restocked after the losses.  The next year I realized why they
depopulated--they were moved into a specific location in an almond
orchard where there were no landmarks, and the field bees simply
drifted to hives at the end of the rows.  Same thing happened the next
year with other colonies--a very expensive learning experience!


> 3. the other trials that i've read (and your study) are not looking for mite resistance at all!  they are looking at mite reproduction only.

I generally go by the assumption that high mite levels will eventually
equal colony death.  So it is quicker to simply measure mite levels,
than waiting for the colonies to die.  Once mite levels get past a
certain point, I assume that that colony does not exhibit enough mite
resistance to meet my criterion for selection.  In the naturally mite
resistant bee Apis cerana and the African bees, mite levels are rarely
allowed by the bees to rise above about a 2% infestation level.  So I
am using natural examples as a model.


>but if we are to assume that you were using enough hives in your study to demonstrate anything, then you seem to have inadvertently demonstrated straight up survival.  as far as i know, none of the other studies out there have been run in such a way to look at survival.

Nothing inadvertent about it.  I'm running the HSC colonies to see if
they will survive without treatments (we occasionally slip and give
one a thymol treatment when we are going through a yard).  So far,
they survive and produce surprisingly well.


Re you discussion with Peter about the use of OTC for AFB:
>i'm not talking about prophylactic use (which i know you advocate), infected hives are allowed to be treated as long as symptoms are kept suppressed, which has serious implications.

Treatment with OTC on infected hives is illegal.  Prophylactic use is legal.
Treatment with tylosin on infected hivesis legal, but prophylactic use
is illegal.
But I agree with you that it has implications for spore transfer.

Hey Dean, just a suggestion, but if you could find the shift key, your
posts would be easier for us old fogies to read.  We did not grow up
in the texting age.

Randy Oliver

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