I typically bring the collection jars from my sugar rolls home for counting at my leisure... ha! Yesterday I had 2 samples, one with 10 mites and one with 11. Both taken late morning. Mid afternoon when I was counting all the mites were alive and active if stimulated so I thought I'd try a little experiment. I gathered them in two clusters on a white card and for one dosed them with a tiny bit of OA crystal on the tip of a toothpick and stirred it around a bit attempting to get them exposed. The other I gathered in a cluster and left alone. I checked them a few times before bed and all in both groups were alive. This morning about 7 AM (around 20 hr. from collection and 15 hr. from dosing) I checked. Of the un-dosed group 7 of 11 were still alive and would wiggle if stimulated and had spread out about an inch from my cluster. For the dosed group 9 of 10 were dead, or at least unresponsive, and one had moved off an inch or so and still wiggled. 

I know this has no scientific validity but thought I'd pass it along as an interesting aside.  

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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