Medhat Nasr wrote:
>
> .
> .
> For monitoring varroa mites, we use natural fall of mites on sticky
> boards in 24 h. If the number of fallen varroa mites/hive/24h is 5-10
> in spring treatment is required. In the fall if the number of fallen
> (Late august-early September) is >100mites/hive/24h treatment is
> required.
>
These figures for natural fall seem extremely high to me.
I have been monitoring natural mite fall this summer during
approx. 2 months : I counted max. 5 mites/hive/week
(I was not using sticky boards) ^^^^
When I treated my colonies at the end of August with Apistan,
the mite drop increased to a few hundered mites the first two
days and then decreased very fast.
This corresponds with what I found on a danish website :
natural mite drop x 100 = real varroa population in the colony.
cheers,
Hugo (the half a bee)