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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:56:17 -0600
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 > various stores (Walgreens) sell reading glasses which fold and can be
 > placed in a crush proof case ( about the size of a half dollar US.)
 > which fit easily in the pocket of your bee suit. Come in many
 > magnifications.

Right.  I have many pairs of reading glasses, including those compact 
ones which I love because they are so low-profile I can wear them and 
still drive my forklift without crashing into things.

The reason I made the point I did is that I found them inadequate for 
getting a truly accurate count of mites on drop boards when accuracy is 
important (not always).  The closest I have come to a real count, done 
right, is around 80% using just reading glasses, and sometimes poorer 
than that.  That is after counting scrupulously and also after much 
practice, too.  I always use a magnifier light now.

Now, what degree of accuracy do we really need?  I assume that if we are 
to going use the recommendations of researchers as a benchmark, that 
they did their homework and know exactly which mites to count and which 
not to count and don' miss many that are on edge or in debris -- so I 
assume that they are counting more mites than most beekeepers.  Maybe 
twice as many or more.  They also have grad students to do the grunt 
work like counting, and we all know that grad students are very studious 
and have nothing better to do than count each board twice.  As a result, 
when researchers say, "25 mites" is borderline (or some such) and the 
beekeeper looks at the same board and sees 5 of the 25 (no kidding), 
what is going to happen?

Of course a prudent beekeeper is not going to allow his/her hives within 
50% of published thresholds (right?), BUT if his/her count is off by 50% 
or more???  On the low side!

I happen to be writing about these very topics in my diary these days 
and what I get around to posting here is just a portion of it and 
largely points I want to receive some debate on.
I have much more detail at:
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

BTW, my drops today are half what they were the first day -- and I used 
the magnifier light AND reading glasses.

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