The obvious one is "What tangible things did they actually measure, and label with the grandiose term 'vitality'?"
To set the stage, I think it is important for us to understand the scope and focus of the research cluster (from the COLOSS website):
'An international experiment to estimate the importance of genotype-environment interactions on vitality and performance of honey bees and colony losses was run between 2009 and 2012. The experiment included 621 starting colonies from 16 different genetic origins belonging to 5 Apis mellifera subspecies (carnica, ligustica, macedonica, mellifera, siciliana). It took place in 21 beeyards, managed by 15 COLOSS partners in 11 European countries, ranging from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, and across Central Europe to the Balkans.'
In light of the ambitious nature of this effort, the team devoted a whole paper to the experimental design and performance criteria:
A Europe-Wide Experiment for Assessing the Impact of Genotype-Environment Interactions on the Vitality and Performance of Honey Bee Colonies: Experimental Design and Trait Evaluation: https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/v10289-012-0015-9
A quick summary:
'At each location, the local strain of bees was tested together with at least two “foreign” origins, with a minimum starting number of 10 colonies per origin. The common test protocol for all the colonies took into account colony survival, bee population in spring, summer and autumn, honey production, pollen collection, swarming, gentleness, hygienic behaviour, Varroa destructor infestation, Nosema spp. infection and viruses. Data collection was performed according to uniform methods. No chemical treatments against Varroa or other diseases were applied during the experiment.'
'Technical recommendations based on these traits were published in 1972 by Ruttner and are currently widely accepted as a standard breeding protocol on a European level.'
Colonies were tested against this matrix (attached) three times a year for three years.
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