> >I guess what I am getting at is that, to my eye at least, although some
> methods are more insightful than others,  none of these tests appears to
> actually be predictive.
>

My feeling is that they can indeed be predictive.  If you have an entrance
average count of 50M spores, I'd feel confident in predicting that the
colony is going downhill.

I think that the point that you're trying to make is that we don't have a
meaningful threshold level where treatment is economically justified.  To
that I would agree.

That figure is likely different for N apis and N ceranae, and dependent upon
protein availability, weather, mite levels, other colony stressors, etc.

I wish that I could be more precise, but the data is just not there.

Re Juanse's individual testing of 10% of colonies in a yard, that would
clearly give more accurate information.

Randy Oliver

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