>
> >For field trials, if you have to open and manipulate colonies, pull
> frames,
>  look for queens, etc. for the treatments, you need to do the same to the
> controls.  Big issue here is often 'time' that the colony is open,
> disturbed.


FWIW, I go out of my way to do exactly that, which is why I sometimes don't
have good observations of what is happening in the hives during the trial.
 If I want to do a spot inspection, then I need to do the same with another
colony randomly chosen in each test group.

As Jerry says, smoking is a big deal, as it strongly affects the colony, so
I am careful to try to smoke every colony in a trial with the same amount.
 Ditto for sham treatments, if you put in a treatment in Crisco on a card,
then every colony must get an identical card with plain Crisco, and so on.

One thing that often bothers me in protocols is when researchers use the
words "randomly chosen" instead of "arbitrarily chosen."  The latter allows
investigator bias.

Randy Oliver

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