>1. If I understand your e-mails, you did not check your bees for 
> some time and they are full of honey.

Yes. I don't extract.  Last inspection was in August.

> Are the screens of the bottom boards clean to let the falling
> mites go through?

Yes.  They are quite new and very clean.  There is a picture on 
my website.
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/incl/IMG364.jpg

There are more discussion and illustrations at 
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary

>2. It is important to know how big is the bee population in the hive.

The populations are average for this time of year.  One year when 
we shook packages to ship to Arizona around this date we had 
around ten pounds of bees as I recall.

>Most of the time we find the screen bottom board is clogged 
> with debris from bees, wax, pollen , etc. 

Good point.  Not the case here, though.

> By the way we finished checking 40 hives in Edmonton region, Alberta 
> Canada. Each hive still has 2-6 frames  of capped brood at this time 
> of the year.

I think that is the case here.  You remember my EPS hives from 
2004 when you and Sam checked them, and that they raise brood 
later in these boxes compared to wood..

I am seeing as much as 40% pale mites and that indicates that there 
is brood in these hives.  I may pull a few frames in one of the 
smaller hives one of these days, as I have to take a few of the 
uppermost boxes off and put them on the bottom since a some of
the hives have full boxes of drawn and capped foundation on top 
and I have not had good wintering success on brand new comb in the 
past. (The bees are not in those boxes now, but are farther down, 
but would move up there in late winter).

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