Hello everyone, here's a quick update on what I've been up to for the past few weeks. I was supposed to meet up with Mr. Meikle on Wednesday March 23rd to put in the last treatment of thymol into the hives, but he had a last minute meeting and we were unable to meet up. However, Mr. Meikle put the treatments in later the same day so the experiment was able to continue on schedule.
On Tuesday March 29th, we counted the Varroa mites on the sticky boards again to compare the figures to those we obtained at the beginning of the experiment. In addition, I began determining brood mass in our hives by analyzing pictures of frames (a technique I will talk about in another post).
Finally, on Wednesday March 30th, we did our final hive evaluations (which is where we weigh each part of every hive to determine changes in brood mass, honey mass, and adult bee mass). This was also the official end of our experiment. For the remainder of my senior research project, I'll be analyzing data and creating my paper and presentation. However, Mr. Meikle and I are meeting up next week to discuss some of the conclusions I could draw from the data and also some programs that could streamline the data analysis process for me. Expect a post on data analysis soon.
