> It could mean that the mite infestation is very light; even after just 24
> hrs I would have expected larger mite drops if you had a serious
> infestation. However, if you're at all sceptical - ie if you're seeing lots
> of mites on adult bees afterwards (ether roll test etc) or in the brood
> cells you should leave the Apistan in for the full treatment period (6
> weeks)and double-check after this with another, secondary control method as
> a test.

Thanks to all that replied.  Maybe I should give a little more information here
and clarify some of the questions that were raised.

* First the yard is my home yard with odds and ends of hives left from queen
rearing activities earlier in the year. (Yes we did raise thousands of cells
which we insert into the splits that we make in spring as mentioned earlier.
Only a small proportion and the ones which do not get a viable cell have
emergency queens).

* These hives have received bees from the extracting room windows over the last
month and we expect that if there are any mite problems anywhere, mites will be
on window bees.

* The hives came from all over our outfit and some have been brought in in the
last few months.  Some have been shuffled around from here to there several
times.

* Bees are active from top to bottom of the hives, and when clustered do cover
the top bars wall to wall.  They are presently eating pollen patties that are
located right adjacent to the strips on the top bars of the top box, and as
Aaron & I observed yesterday, they have eaten up to half a pound since the
patties were applied 5 days ago.  The patties being the same colour as the mites
do complicate the detection a little, since the odd fragment -- about the size
of a mite -- lands on the sticky board.

* The hives weight about 50 kg each and are all doubles on pallets of four.  The
pallets are separated by up to 200 feet.

* I have never seen a mite on an adult bee or brood, although we will look in
the two hives that showed the highest drops.

The purpose of this test is to see if it is practical to 24 hour test *every
hive* -- either with Apistan (R) or formic pads -- individually in a 3,000 hive
operation, and then only leave the strips in the ones showing significant drops,
which we would assume actually need treatment.

We intend to do a 24 hour formic drop test on the *same hives today, after
leaving all the Apistan (R) out for 24 hours, to see if the results are similar.
This should prove the efficacy of the Apistan (R) or not.

All the comments are appreciated, although I don't completely understand
everything that has been said. Please feel free to add to what is said or to
disagree.  I need all the viewpoints I can get.

allen

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