>Randy, I think you incompletely read the figures in the Tsvetkov
paper....However as usual it pays to read the whole paper, not just look at
the figures.
Thank you Christina. Please allow me to quote as to the design of the
experiment from which the queen data were taken:
"We used 10 standard honey bee colonies housed at the York University
Research Apiary... These colonies were randomly assigned to one of two
groups (1 or 2) prior to the experiment....Unlike the 2014 field studies,
the colonies were not actively managed to prevent swarming or to re-queen
queenless colonies. In cases of queen death, the colonies were allowed to
naturally rear replacement queens from emergency queen cells; we did not
remove queen cells during colony inspections and thus did not interfere
with colonies’ abilities to
naturally requeen. The queen of one colony was accidentally crushed during
the first inspection."
Could you please explain to us what part of the experimental design that I
misinterpreted? By my math (dividing 10 by 2, and then subtracting 1 from
the treated group), I come up with 5 colonies in the control group and 4 in
the treated group. Thus, unless you can explain otherwise, I must stand by
my interpretation below;
>
> “I hope that the pasted graphic of her Fig. 2D shows below. The
> experiment,which among other things, tracked the presence of a laying queen
> in 4 treated and 5 untreated control colonies over 90 days. In the treated
> group, there were zero laying queens on Day 80, but one was laying again by
> Day 90.”
>
> >I don’t know about California, but here in New York if queens stop laying
> within 90 days that is a dead colony by the following spring.
Christina, may I suggest with the greatest respect that you study the Fig.
2C more carefully. The queenless colonies in the control group took up to
42 days to resume having brood present. Those colonies generally went
queenless before those in the treated group did, and thus had time to
recover before the researchers stopped their observations. Unfortunately,
the researchers allowed the treated colonies only 14 days to renew their
egglaying, during which 1 colony out of 4 did. We cannot know whether the
rest would have also done so, as did only 3 out of 5 colonies in the
control group.
If anything, the researchers could have concluded that treatment with the
neonic *delayed* the swarming of the treated colonies. Since they did not
allow enough time for the treated group to recover, they really have no
justification for making any other claims.
Christina, I was concerned about the authors' claim of increased queen
mortality, and really want to get the interpretation correct. If you still
feel that I've misinterpreted their data in any way, please post. Thanks!
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
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