> I also think we need a better
> measuring cup measure to get
> closer to 300 bees, say a 3/5's cup?
> Does anyone know of a common
> cup that will hold pretty close
> to 300 bees?
The answer to the question is "0.42". (The Douglas Adams Constant appears
yet again.)
What you want to buy is a measuring cup with metric graduations. 0.42 cups
is exactly 100 ml. (I know that many beekeepers hate seeing metric units,
and I agree that it is an abomination. If the Lord had intended us to use
the metric system, he would have given us 10 fingers and toes.)
I remember an EAS years ago when Marla Spivak was showing everyone the
"Great Lakes IPM Board", which looked like the world's hardest New York
Times crossword puzzle, as there were no clues. But it worked great.
Hard-won research was announced in the same workshop, where bees were
scooped with measuring cups over and over, and then counted by hand to
verify a method for getting exactly 300 bees every time, as the sugar shake
had been recognized as a valuable and non-fatal varroa test. (How powdered
sugar was later promoted in the "dump and brush" approach is beyond me, as
it instantly proved to be completely ineffective under controlled
conditions. It is hard to know how many colonies were lost to this
misinformation being repeated to novices.)
The hard-won research found that one wanted to mark a measuring cup at the
100ml line, which is just under 1/2 cup (0.42 cups). The idea was to shake
bees from a frame into a large bowl and scoop the bees from the bowl.
Clearly, shaking bees off frames that had a goodly patch of open, but "fat"
(ready to cap) larvae was key, as one wants to be shaking bees off the brood
cells being tended and capped over, rather than the brood that is only a day
or two old.
There are also many sampling considerations beyond the number of bees in a
sample, so I'll just leave this link here and slowly back away before I am
once again scoffed at for daring to introduce "math" or "statistics" into
the art of beekeeping.
http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/disorders/documents/LeeSamplingVarroaJEE2010.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/jwc3shp
TL;DR - What matters is picking frames with about-to-be-capped brood, and
being consistent in you method. You don't need EXACTLY 300 bees, and you'll
never get exactly 300 bees, not every time. What matters is doing the
process consistently enough to be able to have a valid relative count within
your yard or operation. The precision of "exactly 300 bees" matters if your
data is to be compared to other operation's data, but even then, I think we
have learned as an industry to look askance at comparisons made between
operations that are not accompanied by reams of meta data to explain the
massive differences between each operation's actions.
I'll also point out that varroa thresholds are STILL bunk, as they prompt
one to ignore the bee population when looking at mite counts, and thereby
prompt one to treat one's largest and most productive hives, which tend to
have more varroa. Better to look at the slope of the curve from regular
measurements, and look at the delta between readings. But beekeepers seem
to like thresholds, as they allow a decision to be made based upon a single
context-free number.
===============
Sent from my not-so smartphone
My typo rate may vary
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