Was pleased that Dave Green appears to have found a feral colony whose
number of mites is being limited (I never said controlled, neither did Dave)
by mites falling from the bees to the ground below. A few years back I
understood a varroa treatment was licensed in France under the trade name
Apivar, I never heard anymore about it but from their trade literature I
quote, "A female mite born on January 1st will have given birth to 1000
mites by December 31st of the same year". Well if in using Open Mesh Floors
I can encourage just a few mites to take the fatal drop I must be assisting
my bees to survive this parasite.

Open Mesh Floors appear more used than I thought but Dave mentions tobacco
smoke. Has he ever used this horrendous (and that's a pipe smoker talking)
method of knocking down mites. Initially in the UK a system of diagnosis was
being advocated where a few frames were placed into a sealed nucleus box, a
few puffs of tobacco smoke blown in and left whilst the remainder of the
colony was worked. I demonstrated the method at a meeting and was horrified
on opening the nucleus box to find several hundred DEAD BEES on the floor.
The method never caught on, well those attending my demonstration never used
it, and I've never been invited back!!

Back to mesh floors. Using 15" stands I have found it very easy to wedge
thin plywood or similar just below the floor. Put into position without
having to lift brood boxes, they are left in for a couple of days and then
removed - hence no wax moths. A few mites may be blown away (very few in our
present calm and sultry weather) to give a false reading BUT WHAT IS PERFECT
IN BEEKEEPING?

I am working on copying the German mesh floor article, all requests will be
fulfilled in the course of time.

Ken Hoare
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