>> >Tell me how you want me to do a count, and I will
>> conduct counts to your specs.

>The count that I find most consistently accurate is the alcohol
>wash of a level 1/2 cup of bees from a brood frame.
>Would be very curious as to the actual percent mite infestations over the
>season.

I imagine that you know this, but you are asking for a lot, and if Joe complies,
you owe him 'way more than one beer.

To get more than a very rough idea, around six hives per yard would have
to be sampled repeatedly _from the centre of the brood nest_ on a frame
of actual brood. That may mean removing supers.

Even being on the wrong frame could result in seeing two mites instead of 17.
That is from personal experience!

In my experience, alcohol sampling is a fast method for getting an overall
picture over a number of hives, but is also very operator-dependant and 
time-dependant.  For meaningful results, the presence and amount of brood
should be observed as well.

For a really good monitoring, I like natural mite drop.  I know it has some
detractors and requires a bit more interpretation, but it is easy to do after
the apparatus is installed and the results can easily be recorded using a
digital camera.  The drop patterns and debris tell a lot about a colony that
cannot be determined from an alcohol wash.

NMD is a non-invasive, passive method which requires little effort and yields
meaningful results, even beyond mite population dynamics.

NMD has been widely denigrated due to the fact that a 24-hr drop can
be quite deceptive.  IMO, that problem goes away if the drops are taken
over a week or so and even more so if repeated periodically or run
continuously.  I was very gratified to hear Pierre Giovenazzo from Quebec
say nice things about the method and illustrate how it is an accurate
approach.  I believe he said it is the _most_ accurate short of counting
every mite by hand.  His talks and some slides are summarized at
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/2011/diary021011.htm
For those looking for speakers for meetings, I recommend him highly, BTW.
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