On 17-Mar-15, at 12:40 PM, Peter Loring Borst wrote: >> > > Having done thousands of ether rolls and hundreds of sticky boards, > I would point to the major flaw of the sticky board: it cannot > distinguish between a healthy hive with low mites and a nearly dead > one with low mites. In other words, colony population has to be > factored in. > Hi Peter and All I believe I have overcome this disadvantage of sticky boards. My method, however, is even more time consuming so not likely of interest to larger operators. I start using sticky boards on all of my hives, except nucs and splits, in June. I follow up with additional sticky board counts every two weeks until autumn. By looking at the growth in the number of mites in each hive I can predict which hives will need treatment and when, before the counts get to the critical stage. My wife would disagree but I do have a life without bees and I sometimes miss a check and get surprised by a high count. I almost never find mites in June, but early springs change that. Warm weather starting in late March or early April will guarantee high mite counts in August and poor goldenrod flow in my experience. Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W *********************************************** 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