>
> >Only other thing I would add is the mites from the robbed hive will also
> probably carry a higher viral load compounding the problem.


Thanks Bill.  Although robbing appears to be the main cause of mite
immigration, there is also the simple drift issue.  In a crowded apiary
under normal conditions, up to 20% of the bees in a hive may not have been
"born" in that hive.  Thus the immigration and emigration of mites was a
factor that I needed to quantify in developing my mite model

The problem is compounded later in the season, as it appears to me (a
friendly suggestion to Charlie--I clearly state when I'm making a guess; I
have no hard data as of yet to support this hypothesis) that bees tend to
drift out of sickening colonies into nearby healthy hives.

Furthermore, there is hard evidence that as the intensity of mite
infestation increases in a hive, that this cues the mites to start hitching
rides on older workers rather than nurses.  By doing so, this increases a
mite's chance of getting into another hive before the colony that she's in
collapses.

--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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