Hi Bill & All

Thanks Bill for your description of your method.  I built my own screened bottom boards which I leave open to the ground all summer.  Those of you dealing with SHB will call me an idiot because as Dr Delaplane told me: The open screens will provide easy passage to the soil for the larvae thus helping to turn my beeyard into a SHB breeding farm.  I don’t have SHB yet but made some modifications, as suggested by Jerry Freeman, to allow an oil pan to be installed as Jerry does to trap SHB.  Dr Delaplane agreed with the plan.   I close off the screen with styrofoam and plywood for the winter. 
Back to varroa.  When using sticky boards in the summer I smear vaseline on 11x17 paper that sits on a plastic restaurant tray that slides in the back of the hive below the screen.  I usually leave them in for 24 hrs then carry the stack of trays to the deck to count the mites.  I try to do this every 2-3 weeks from mid June till October in order to watch the exponential rise in mite numbers and decide when to treat if at all.  Early warm springs result in lots of mites whereas late springs similar to 2018 & 2019 result in almost no mites.

Bob Darrell
Caledon Ontario
Canada
44N80W

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