Hello Randy & All,
Randy said:
> And yes, there is both hard data, and my own personal observations, that
> indicate that drone brood infestation is not a reliable indicator of 
> overall
> mite population.

 A different perspective than you usually hear at beekeeping meeting 
presentations:

Maybe not if you are writing a research paper but I have worked along some 
of the largest beekeepers in the U.S. looking through hives and all carried 
a cappings scratcher in their trucks. Drone brood is what we look at first. 
When you get good at pulling drone brood you can lay a hundred on a lid in a 
hurry.
I can tell quite a bit from those 100 drones and easily.

Then I can estimate ( or check with a roll ) the amount of varroa outside of 
the cells. Exactly the opposite of what researchers tell you.

Most rolls will vary depending on the area from which it came and tell 
nothing about the mites in cells. I personally place little faith in what a 
college researcher says the amount of varroa at any given time is in cells. 
One number fits every hive?

Pulling worker brood is interesting also and we have further checked worker 
brood at times after checking drone brood..

I hear what researchers  say about rolls and drops and thresholds. One size 
does not fit all hives.

When I check a hive for varroa in a yard I pick the most populous hive and 
completely take the hive apart. Every frame. I count frames of bees and 
amount of brood. Varroa load. I then make the decision to treat for varroa 
based on the strongest hive in the yard.

Is it best in the opinion of the BEE-L to check a few hives with a roll , a 
few with a sticky board or do as I do ( when you obviously do not have the 
time to test all the hives in a yard ) when making the decision to treat an 
outyard for varroa? Two decades of checking for varroa as made me realize 
the hive with the largest population almost always has the highest varroa 
load.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

2009 is fifty years working with bees. 

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