Hello All,
Many people have asked me about pseudoscorpions lately because of the Bee-L
posts. I have seen the little buggers but only rarely and allways considered
them in the same class as the garden spiders,etc. which hang around hives
feeding on a bee every once in a while.  After looking in the most obvious
books and not finding very much information I started going back through my
old bee magazine collection and turned up a one page article by Dewey Caron.
Bee Culture-July 1992 page 389.
Dewey observed the pseudoscorpions in several settings.  In Central
America(Belize) he saw as many as 200 in a single hive of Pablo Cals
Apiaries. The article said Dewey found one article out of India which
reported hives with pseudoscorpions were "remarkably free" of wax moths and
mites. Hardly enough for me to raise pseudoscorpions to put in my hives but
only fair to those advocating their use to say he does talk about their
possible use as a mite control.  I will do a few random quotes from Deweys
article as old magazine issues can be hard to find and Deweys article is the
best information source I found.  I think all beekeepers should subscribe to
Bee Culture(and also check out my article in the December 2000 issue).

Pseudoscorpions by Dewey Caron quote:

A pseudoscorpion looks like a scorpion but they have a oval body with no
tail (drawing in the article). The mouth parts are greatly enlarged into
strong pinchers(termed pedipalps). They use these pinchers,which resemble
the claws of lobsters or crabs,to grab a honey bee.  The bee becomes
paralyzed from an injection of enzymes and is then dragged backward to a
crevice where it is lodged so the *Pse* (tired of typing the word) can feed
on it for the next day or so.
One species of *Pse* lives in libraries and feeds on pests of library books.
The *Pse* can be found in compost piles, Oak forest leaf litter and in the
nests of pigeons.
Dewey says there are no reports of them being in colonies in North America
but they probably do exist here.
Dewey seemed curious about the *Pse* so he ended the article with the
following.
I would be extremely interested in hearing from you if you find them or
suspect you have them in your bees.  Let me know if you find one of these
exotic, but seldom seen creatures in your colonies.
Another excellent article by Dewey Caron for Bee Culture magazine.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Odessa, Missouri