?> This finding also surprised me, as I would have expected there to be a 
far greater difference in mite levels!  Note that although there were, on 
the average, more mites in the drone-comb hives, the mite levels between the 
two groups still were not significantly different!

> Also note the surprisingly high mite drop in one of the colonies (271 in 
> 48 hr) only three months after Apistan treatment!  Either the Apistan had 
> failed to effect a good kill, or that colony picked up additional mites by 
> robbing or drift.

We discussed here that the placement of the drone comb  in the cluster seems 
to influence the amount of mite invasion.  I believe that someone indicted 
that the higher concentration of mites was found in cells further out? 
Perhaps these combs were too close to the centre for the mites' preference?

> Thus, it may be difficult to separate out the effect of viruses from that 
> of the amount of drones.  Seeley left open such a possibility in his 
> discussion, although he did not mention viruses, which were only beginning 
> to be understood at that time.

This can be a weakness in any study.  I attended a recent presentation from 
Beaverlodge on nosema.  Although they did a huge amount of work and ran many 
hives and did many measurements, apparently no measure of, or treatment for 
either tracheal or Varroa mites was ever made during duration of the trials 
which extended from April 2009 to August 2010, as I recall, and were ended 
when there were too few hives left for meaningful continuation.  Apparently 
no other pathogens were considered, either. 

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