"A pan-European epidemiological study reveals honey bee colony survival depends on beekeeper education and disease control" http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172591 looking at the BIP last 5 years Only about 4% of the "back yard" (50 and under club) ran alcohol washes, those that didn't took 40% higher losses the backyard keepers that ran Amitraz had only 25.4% losses As such I would not rule out experience/education, there seems to be a strong trend the better you take care of your bees the better the survival. There is a trend in the hobby market to try to paint commercials as abusive to thier stock... the loss % say other wise *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html