Allan asks,

>>Do you uncap the 'spotty' brood cells to determine 

>>1. if they are the same age as the nearby cells,
>>2. to count the mites, and
>>3. to determine if there is brood mortality?


Hello Allan,

I wish that I had quantitative numbers to provide, unfortunately time constraints have so far prevented my doing this.  

For me, seeing a hive go from having numerous easily visible phoretic mites, to having none visible, back to having mites visible when the first brood emerges is convincing evidence that a majority of mites invade the first cycle of brood in a spring or summer split.

I have uncapped a few cells of the spotty brood in the first cycle after a newly mated queen, and noted that the pupae inside cells still capped are several days behind in development of where they should be.  This assumption is based on the uniformity of the brood pattern when it was first capped.  However, the pupae do not always have a mite on them. 

For cells that are emerging, I can easily observe bees that emerge with a mite on its back.  The only thing close to brood mortality I see is bees that emerge with DWV, but they still usually carry a live mite.

I do not notice obvious mite mortality, and I agree with Allan that a serious brood uncapping experiment would be the only way to document this.

Randy says that he notices that the hives outbreed the mites for a little while after the new queen is laying.  I would definitely agree with this observation.  In my opinion the hive made from a queen cell split remains healthy enough to be reasonably productive for an extra one to two months (after the queen mates), compared to a split that already contains a laying queen.

Jeremy Rose
San Luis Obispo, CA

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