Michael Bush
02-07-2003, 11:26 AM
http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/soft/vpop/vpop.html
This is a program to predict the outcomes of mite infections. It simulates the mite population increases.
Robert Brenchley
02-07-2003, 01:21 PM
I tried it but I couldn't work out how to set it up for the local climate. Does anyone know?
George Fergusson
11-13-2005, 07:33 AM
Time to reawaken this thread and blow the dust off I think, it's been in the closet for two and a half years!
Anyone looked at VarroaPop recently? I doubt much work has been done on it since 2003. I've been playing with it for about a week now and have found it interesting to say the least. Could use better documentation, but what isn't clearly explained is pretty easily figured out if you ponder the numbers long enough.
>>I tried it but I couldn't work out how to set it up for the local climate. Does anyone know?
You've waited a while for an answer to this question! I haven't tried yet Robert, but it seems like a simple if tedious matter of modifying the weather file for your region. The currently available version contains weather files for the southwest and the midwest, I dunno what was included in 2003. Modifying this file involves getting the hours of daylight, average wind and rainfall, temperatures, etc. I'll be tackling this later when winter really set in and I've got more time on my hands.
That said, I don't think customizing it for a particular locale is necessary to gain a better understanding of what's going on inside a varroa infested colony. It's all relative and the numbers can be illuminating, and educational, even if they're not exactly what you're going to see in your home town.
George-