It doesn't inspire confidence in the survey, either the standard or results, when the construction is so poor.
"16. In 2012 what percentage of your colonies did you provide a new queen because of: queen problmes (e.g. drone laying)?" I know typos occur, but what does sending out a public document without even a spell check say?
There are more serious examples than the spelling. For example, in the "Summer Losses" question 10, it starts with a simple "How many production colonies did you have on April 1st 2012?". Fair enough, put a number. Then "How many of these colonies were lost... between April 1st 2012 and October 1st 2012?" Fine, most will put 0 I suspect.
Then: "Of these lost colonies, how many did not contain any signs of dead bees within or outside the hive? Please give your answer as a numerical digit".
There are other questions that reveal options when answered, so why does this one insist on a number, even if losses were 0? And why the convoluted syntax? It appears to be asking if any were CCD candidates - but the phrasing is so awkward. If there is a later claim that a survey shows CCD is in the UK is that because there really is CCD or because a percentage didn't interpret the question as intended?
Another example, "28. Between April 2012 and April 2013, have you had any problems with the following?" which includes tick boxes for the usual diseases like AFB, Varroa and some non-disease problems like woodpeckers and vandalism.
Then question 29 asks "Were any of your colonies diagnosed with the following between April 2012 and April 2013?" followed by a list including many of the same diseases, all of which have to be answered "positive", "negative" or "not tested". If I didn't have a problem with AFB in 28, why have I the option of recording a positive test in 29? And what is it scored as if I did?
Trying to answer the question for the AFB entry in 29, well I looked for but didn't see any. Is that a "negative" because I didn't see it? I'm not employed as an inspector; they wouldn't put an entry on the map on my say-so, is it good enough here or is that "not tested" because I didn't use a lateral flow test or send any samples off to York for their lab. Varroosis, "positive" because they dropped a few, "negative" because it wasn't enough to cause serious harm or "not tested" because it's only an observation? Similarly DWV, is it "positive" because I saw some symptoms. "negative" because I missed it or "not tested" because there was no virology lab test?
A survey could be useful, and I was hopeful that it might be thorough given the preamble about a randomly generated sample. Unfortunately the standard of questions and construction limit how realistic any interpretation of results are going to be.
Nah, it's legitimate. The link goes to the authentic FERA website.
