On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Brian Gant wrote:
 
> At the end of September the hives were treated with Bayvarol and the two
> test colonies produced 702 and 1282 mites, as counted on the floor below
> a 3mm wire screen. Curiously the control colony which
> had no drone culling ended up with only 663 mites although it had a rather
> higher infestation at the start of the season, as measured by natural mite
> mortality. All three colonies were kept in the same apiary for most of the
> season. The sample is small and I do not think that the actual numbers are
> significant. But I feel safe in deducing that in my situation this method
> of controlling varroa, as described above, is not effective.
 
Brian,  maybe your control colony has hygenic behavior?
 
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