>
> > To be clear, under option 1, if you establish four  colony
> grades (1, 2, 3, 5) based on metrics such as frames covered by bees,
>  frames of
> brood, possibly weight of colony or frames of honey, etc.), and if you
>  have
> controls and 4 treatment levels, you'd end up with each control set and
> each treatment composed of a 1, 2, 3, and a 4 grade colony).  All of  the
> 1s
> would be randomly assigned to the control and to each of four treatments,
>  all
> of the 2s would be randomly assigned, etc.  There would be 4 control
> colonies, and 4 colonies in each treatment.


Thanks Jerry, totally in agreement, and does not introduce the stress of
homogenization.  Homogenization may be useful well in advance of a trial,
though, if one wants to ensure that all colonies contain a background level
of some inoculum, such as nosema.  But that could also be done by the
application of a homogenate of ground-up bees taken from all colonies.

Randy Oliver

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