I got tired of counting mites on the sticky boards, so I gave alcohol wash a try, as described by Randy Oliver. Good news: 1% or 0% mite counts. Bad news: boneheaded miss in not spotting the queen among the scooped up bees of one hive. Found it out when I was draining the wash. Ouch. Emergency queen replacement ordered, but then I wanted to look at the queen under microscope and noticed that her abdomen was heaving. Then, in my hand, her legs started twitching. I figured if she is going to get better, it's the colony that will ensure that, so I put her on the landing board. Guard bees immediately surrounded her and then dragged her inside the hive. Then they turned on me - they had all the rights to be pissy, :-(

Question: should I naively hope that somehow she went through "the wash" fine? Per Randy's description I cut the alcohol in half, so it was 35%. When the replacement queen arrives, I'll examine the hive thoroughly, but I'm wondering if there's a chance I'll find the old queen running around just fine, or was what I saw some sort of an insect's post-mortem muscle contractions, etc.?

Przemek

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html