I have finally got to do the Apistan resistance test. It was to cold to open the hive so I jiggled a jar at the vent hole to gather bees for the test. I have found the bees stay in the jar longer if there is a hint of honey in the jar. When I was using a bare jar they where in and out fast, I was getting about 50 bee’s average. With the scent of honey they went in the jar and stayed.

The test ingredients - 98 bees in a one quart wide mouth canning jar, one piece of 3/8 x 1 inch Apistan strip stapled to a piece of index card, canning jar rim with screen covering jar. 
The bees were kept in the jar for 6.5 hours in a warm dark place (half hour over recommended time, wanted to eat dinner before I dumped mites on the kitchen table) with the piece of Apistan strip facing the inside of the jar as the instructions stated. After the recommended time I shook the jar hard many times over a piece of white paper. It took allot more shaking than I expected,  finally a very healthy, and I may add fast crawling, mite fell out of the jar. I shook hard some more but did not get another mite. I rinsed the bees in alcohol to get the final count of mites and got 15 mites. So the end results are the mites in that hive are not affected by Apistan strips. I only tested one hive for resistance in one bee yard. So do not feel this includes all Varroa mites every where.

Variables to the testing recommendation were we had put two strips in the hive about 7 days before I had a chance to collect bees from that hive. The first collection died in the jar from some sort of unknown residue and I could not get back to that yard right away to collect more bees. I do not think this would affect my test greatly as far as resistance. Do any of you?

I am done with killing bees for this season, alcohol shakes are not much fun. My preference is sugar shakes. Everything is just screwed up this year, things beyond my control including the weather so did the best I could with what I had.

On to the next thing, 

Karen

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