> ... I often dream of these American commercial beekeepers, the one's
> that I am told manage many thousands of hives, do they run around
> pushing sheets of paper into a space under the brood box?
 
Well, I have only about 3,000 hives, but I have been pondering the same
thing.  I don't plan to use screens, but it has ocurred to me to have a
kid go around sticking standard 8-1/2" x 11" white copy paper -- or some
such thing -- into the entrances of a portion of the hives in each yard,
then return the next day to count natural mite drop.  Maybe the paper
needs to be coated with Pam or spray adhesive or something like that.  I
don't know.
 
I gathered from discussion here that established populations have a normal
steady die-off rate, and that need for treatment can be determined from
looking at the number of naturally dead mites that accumulate over 24
hours.  I heard somewhere that up to eight was no cause for panic, but
that seems high to me.
 
This paper method -- if it worked -- would be a cheap way of spotting hot
spots in the outfit and targeting treatment. Up to this year we had relied
on spot checks using alcohol wash with occasional Apistan/stick board
checks and never found anything.
 
This year when we found three mites -- using Apistan and a sticky board --
in a hive that had been made up of window bees from the honey house, we
decided that we were late in the season, running out of time, and had an
infestation somewhere unknown of unknown magnitude.
 
Our response was to 'nuke 'em'  We spent $10,000 on Apistan and to put
strips in every hive.  Next year we will have time to survey and use a
more IPM type of approach.  $10,000 could go a long way if we did that.
 
Is this a practical way to test, or should we be relying on alcohol wash
and/or ether shake?
 
Or am I on the wrong track?
 
Allen