>... In a natural drop, if brood is present, about half of
>the mites that drop are ones coming out of emerging brood, that would not
>survive for more than a few hours (Lobb 1997 Mortality of Varroa jacobsoni
>Oudemans during or soon after the emergence of worker and drone honeybees,
>Apidologie 28:367).

That is good information.  We sorta know that by looking at dropped mites, 
but it is nice to have an authority look at the question.

(Going off-track for a second: Another thing of that sort that I cannot get anyone 
to comment about is that when comparing dead mite counts under cappings in
formic-treated hives with dead mite counts under cappings in controls, we 
notice that there are significant number of dead mites under cappings in 
non-treated hives.  What causes that????)

>...  What I was saying was that
>the accelerated drop caused as many mites to fall, as natural drop would in
>6 days.  This wasn't meant to imply that 34% of actual, viable phoretic
>mites drop in 6 days.

OK.  If we accept that almost half the mite drop over six days will be non-viable 
mites that were not part of the phoretic population at the moment of treatment, 
then tonaturally drop a number equal to 34% of the phoretic population number 
over six days, we would have see a drop of roughly 34/6~=6% a day.  

Even if half that 6% were non-viable mites emerging during the six days, that 
would still require a daily natural drop of around 3% of the total mite population.
That seems high to me under most conditions.  

What am I missing?

>Wow, you are right!  I've given ppt presentations with step by step photos
>so many times, that I thought that I had put them into an article.  I will
>try to get them onto my site (I'm sending you a ppt of them).

Thanks.  Very instructive.

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