>
> >Right, but for this study the authors dusted every two weeks for a year
> and found that it essentially did nothing.


Pete, first they didn't say that it did nothing!  They strongly qualified
their conclusions.

I just said that regular dusting did not appear in my trials to effect a
major drop in mite populations, but that it did slow population buildup.  If
you look at Ellis's results, there was an initial reduction in mite levels,
as I've seen.  However, since there was no population growth of the mites in
Ellis' control group, I wouldn't expect sugar dusting to be able to prevent
such growth.  So I would hesitate to extrapolate the results of this trial
to a situation where mites actually built up in the control group over the
season!

Again, I suggest that all look at Ellis' Figure 4 and decide for
themselves.  Look at the starting and ending mite levels for each group.  I
feel that the data would be far more meaningful if we could see the
individual plots for each colony.  In my own experimentation, I find that I
trust my eyes to pick out patterns more than I trust simple statistical
significance.

I'm not trying to sell sugar dusting in any way.  My trials come up with
different results than Ellis'.  Ellis' were done under Florida conditions
which are very different than those of most temperate areas.



> >I studied screened bottom boards for several years and saw the same
> results, that they do
> nothing.


I have also found little direct effect of screened bottoms on mite levels.


> >Other people's results may vary, depending on the degree of Faith applied,
> but to me a
> technique that does nothing is not one I would advocate.


My faith is in data and actual field results. I started out skeptical as
hell about sugar dusting, and my initial tests did not demonstrate any
effect.  However, I was curious enough to run further controlled trials and
efficacy tests.   My data and field results have been published.  I do not
recommend top sugar dusting as a sole mite control measure.  However, I do
feel that sugar dusting holds promise as part of an IPM strategy.

I rant regularly at beginners classes and at conventions against depending
upon faith to manage varroa.  This is why I do the hard work of actually
putting things to the test, as did Dr. Ellis.

Unfortunately, Nature threw Dr. Ellis a curve, and I do not find her results
to necessarily be applicable to my particular situation in which mite
populations normally increase over the season.

Randy Oliver

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