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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:53:53 -0500
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> When you were examining the drop boards, were you looking for  other  things  besides just the raw mite counts? Did you learn other interesting and useful things from what dropped to the boards?

In answer to the second question, I saw a presentation by Wyatt Mangum where he went on for an hour about all the things you could see and tell from sticky boards. The main thing I learned was that by itself it wasn't much use. You have to have info on the cluster size, too. But no, we weren't looking for anything but mite drop numbers. 

It was when I was working at the Dyce Lab and we were doing trials with formic acid pads that we made ourselves. We collected a lot of different kinds of data. I weighed the pads weekly to track evaporation. I did ether rolls, and also saved the samples to get an exact mite count per sample. And, we had stick boards which we would monitor. 

The net result however was that formic pads applied after the honey flow were not much help in controlling mites, for two reasons. One, by the end of September mite levels were way too high and the damage was already too severe. Two, the temperatures were too low to get a good mite kill. 

I always thought that we needed a good method that we could use in August, before the late summer flows. When the Mite Away strips came out, I thought: there you have it. I guess people have had mixed results, the treatment seems to be too hard on some colonies. But mites are worse.

Pete

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