Randy Oliver, I just went thru this on the Organics List for beekeepers there, talking about broodnest turnover period and, with that the switch from short-lived honeybees to long-lived honeybees that happens then, like in the spring when our bees turn from long-lived honeybees to short-lived honeybees. At this time beekeepers look for bees dying off from preceeding season and then firing up in waves with small patch of brood and then with each succeeding wave of brood layed and cycle, more and more. But what most beekeepers don't key into is the fact that there are short-lived mites and long-lived mites that coincide with the honeybees, and the mites dying each session of turnover, hence a spike in their deaths when the broodnest is cleaned and resterilized with propolis. For the broodnest acts like a living liver in a beehive and all pests, predators, and diseases of the bees broodnest is thus filtered and cleaned thru it come turnover time of brood. Other then that the bees go in a holding pattern with the drones protecting the colonies by adsorbing the problems themselves first, to give time to the workers to raise brood the queen lays, and forage for food for the colony. Now with the upswings of brooding and food coming in the bees do more work associated with that. But on the downswings of brooding aka the lulls and food coming in, then the bees periodically chewout and clean and maintain the broodnest somewhat, but the main push for recleaning and resetup normally comes twice a year (spring and fall). Then the mite turnover of for example the short-lived mites like in the late summer HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE and MUST DIE to turn over. It is a spike for lack of other words and yet few look at it this way, nor consider what is happening. For if the short-lived mites don't die......then where do they go? It's as simple as that, and large mite counts are therefore good to see at least for me and the FIRST regression down cycle in the fall is the hardest to explain to a new beekeeper to go thru for they are told it is bad. But in actuality it is good, for if you don't see the bees cleaning out the mites following an active year of regressing size down as much as you can for the bees to have smaller comb to help against varroa reproduction, then the mites go on. Seeing them thrown out and chewed out is good. Also, helping the bees to adjust back down to 10-15% drone cells is also good for it strengthens the chewing out phase and broodnest cleaning/turnover phase. This way first turnover with SC you get massive chewing out of varroa and I have talked about this much with seeing when we did it back in 1997, whole sheets of purple eye pupae looking at us, like someone had taken a hot knive and uncapped the worker brood. But this is not bad to see, for it means the bees are working for all they can to save larvae and pupae from varroa. Mites being taken out from both cells and off the bodies of bees are then seen in mass and this is nothing to be afraid of. You need and want to see it to know the bees are cleaning. Then by the time the broodnest turnover phase is done, the chewing out and mite drops slow down and is lesser come the following spring, and then progressively gets better the more the whole hive is converted back to a more natural sustainable system. Talked about it here even and it is in the archives I am sure, though you would probably have to add in the short-lived and long-lived mite part for understanding whole picture as back then I just talked about the massive chewing out of varroa and though everyone would understand what I was saying without getting more deep and specific into the turnover thing. But again, think about it. It is logical, it fits the time period and it is what is happening. The bees are throwing out/cleaning out the short-lived now fading away short-lived mites and knowing that colones turn brood at different timings means some start earlier and some later and while chewing off mites during the non-brooding lull, the as the brooding slowly restarts and gains speed, the bees then to keep them from reproduction during the firing up, then chew them out. Prior to that the drones took care of the problem by accepting the badness upon themselves, but during turnover the poor drones are sacrificed like offerings now and thrown out with duties done, until they are allowed to restart back up again to again work for the benefit of the hives with guarding besides mating priveliges. So be happy if on first regression down to SC if you see large mite counts and the bees working to get rid of them by chewing out. Now in saying this...........with LC the problem is unchanged and the problem worsens. For the tergits are better for the phoretic mites to get between and eat blood meal and the blood meal in late summer has a higher JGH level and hence better for reproduction. Then too many LC bees also don't chew out varroa like with SC bees haveing been thrown into a triggering mode to do so. So with mites having a blood meal to maintain high JGH levels and then with brooding restarting back up you get more mites left alive going into the few LC worker cells with each season. This then means that once the worker cells have one mite the first season, then the second you work up to 2 mites going in and 10 fold increases or more are not uncommon especially with treatments failing. so with 2 mites or more going in with brood restarting you get then the 2 original plus offspring then sucking blood of the larvae/pupae. This is bad on LC where there is reproduction vs SC where there is really no reproduction. With 4 or more sucking in a cell of worker pupae on LC you get shortened lives of the honeybees. many don't make it out of the cell alive as numbers progress. But you also have to consider that with 4 or more (basically 2 adults in plus offspring say from 2-3 year into process) you get the lives of the bees shortened by 1/2. This means foraging also cut in half and with main flows stopping and lulling late summer this can be bad for not having force to make broodnest turnovers and can lead to crashes. In winter too the 1/2 life is bad for having early spring crashes too. But also on top of this the bees chewed upon with LC are also sick and deformed and many do not besides even do house duties. Which then means lack of nurse bees, lack of house cleaning bees, besides lack of foragers, and what foragers are left have shortened lives now. Just a bad situation. Again on turnover you need to see large mite falls or spikes to know the bees are doing jobs, especially if field management is changed prior to to give the bees a chance to turn worker bees prior to going into turnover of the broodnest. So with SC we like to see LARGE mite drops this time of year. We like to see good patches of chewing out of varroa. For again the short-lived mites in late summer have to go someplace. To not see this means trouble, for if not spitting out and chewing out........where is the trouble with mites going to go??????? Food for thought..... Regards, Dee __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---