The mite drop per day is never going to be linear.

The mite drop over time is a dynamics of  the following factors:

1). level of resistance to chemical being used (susceptible ones will drop first),
2). the number of bees in the colony (larger colony will take longer for the chemical
to be spread to each bee)
3). mode of action of the chemical (fast acting or not), and
3). how many new bees are emerging (perhaps the largest factor).

we have removed all the sealed brood and put 20 strips into 2 broodboxes and then
checked the mite drop by hr:  it usually peaks at hr 4-5 after Apistan insertion.
however, if mites are resistant, most will drop over night.  Does any one here know if
such data is already available? (the time course of mite drop after strip insertion).   I
am sure the manufacturer has this type of data.

I am assuming if you use only 4 strips (standard), it might take 2-3 days to kill all the
nonresistant mites.  but bees will keep emerging (for about 12 days for workers and
14 days for drones), bringing more mites out.

Some scientists think that the Apistan manufacturer made a mistake:  instead of
using 14x2=28 days, they must have calculated 21 days (eggs to adult for workers)
and used two brood cycles (21x2=42 days, recommended time for Apistan to stay in
the hive).

Zach

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