Hello James, Bob and Everyone, Thanks for the information. I too have noticed live damaged mites. Some are apparently mortally wounded while others move irregularly comparted to other undamaged mites. The bees behavior certainly does change toward the mites as the season progresses. As the season ends most hives starting cleansing the hives of mites about the same time, but others started the process almost 6 weeks later. It could be as Bob stated that the bees can sense a certain mite level. Today, I used powdered sugar on my SMR small cell hives. Little or no brood was present in the hives. About 400 mites/hive dropped from the powdered sugar treatment. It was cool, in the 50's degrees F, and the bees were in a loose cluster with about 8 solid frames of bees. This is the last inspection inside the hive of the year for me. Next spring will be interesting. One of the large commercial beekeepers told that his traditional method of treating mites with Apistan failed this year with most of the drones in some hives having two or three mites each after treatment. The other commercial beekeeper is having worse problems with mites than that. He has switched to Checkmite. I guess that could explain alot of the problems I have been having with mite immigration. Best Wishes Dennis Murrell