> In conclusion, our results showed that only the number of Varroa that fell over a 4-day period was significantly correlated with the actual mite population in beehives. 

> I am not sure I would agree with the above either!

Hi Charlie

I have never been a fan of sticky boards and mite drops. The study here, however, was done in November with single story hives, which is not the same as checking mite fall from colonies which are of various strength and occupying multiple stories. For example, if the bees are mostly in the second and third story, the mites not really fall off them all the way to the bottom, whereas if all the bees & brood was in the first story, the number of mites falling off the cluster might be more consistent. 

When I worked at the Dyce Lab, we used a sticky board to check the efficacy of formic acid treatments in fall. The treatment would be followed by another one using Checkmite, to see how many mites were still in the colony after the formic treatment. As you all know, using the formic pads late in the season is pretty much useless. It's too late to do any good and the low temperatures inhibit the vaporization. To me, August is the best time for formic using MAQs or some other quick treatment. Later, oxalic acid would be the best option if the levels are still high. 

But the bottom line is that any sampling is better than no sampling. Even if you aren't going to treat, mite counts are useful to understand what levels bees can tolerate, without succumbing. To just ignore the problem won't make it go away

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html