Mite drop issues r the reason I sample by alcohol wash! The 150-200 house/nurse bees I sample r typically only a minor %age of the daily emergence rate of new bees. Yes I always find the queen and set her aside. I take the mite count then retain the bees for counting so I can get a more accurate %age. Yes I only have 6 colonies now but splits are coming up in late March. I get a spring baseline then sample each colony every two months. So during the year that's a max of only 1,200 bees I kill to get my %ages. One spring day of new bees and it takes me all of about 1.5 hrs/yr/colony. My opinion, sticky boars r not worth my time!

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