>Are you saying that a powdered sugar shake seems to be as accurate an indicator as an alcohol wash? I've heard various opinions. I rather like the idea of a sugar shake which leaves the bees alive as apposed to an alcohol wash which disposes of around three hundred bees (I have a soft heart). Mike, I'm a softie, too. But have gotten used to sacrificing a relatively few bees in order to keep my operation alive. Two days ago, as we were taking bee samples into alcohol in 50F weather, my soon screened a brood frame for the queen, and then handed it to me to shake. When I dumped the bees into alcohol, there was the queen, dry on top of the sinking bees. I grabbed her, but not quickly enough to keep her from getting wet. First time we've noticed getting a queen inadvertently. Really shook up my son's confidence at spotting queens (he is actually quite good at it). What I was referring to was a whole-hive dusting accelerated mite drop. However, to answer your question, the sugar shake works fine, but only gets about 70% of the mites to drop, so in order to compare to alcohol wash, multiply the mite count by 1.4 to 1.5. Sugar shake requires that you roll the bees in the jar in order to get them disturbed enough to heat up their wing muscles, which then causes the mites to release their grip. Be aware that at least one respected researcher feels that you can recover more than 70% with a sugar shake, but neither Dr. Marion Ellis' nor my data support that claim. My problem with the sugar shake is that it takes much longer than an alcohol wash, is messier, and harder to count the mites, as they can be covered by sugar, blow away, or if you do it into water, may be hard to see as they float. So it is mainly a time thing. It also makes your arm sore, since you need to shake the bees for so danged long before the mites finally stop dropping off. I'm sure that Bob and Allen would agree that in any kind of monitoring, the more samples, and the more often taken the better. So to me, if the sampling method is in any way difficult or time consuming, it simply doesn't get done. Medhat's double bottle is the best thing that I've found (note its similarity to the photo of the bottle that I developed a few years ago-- http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58 ). It is quick, and more accurate than the ether roll, sticky board, or anything else other than washing bees in a submerged sieve in a tub of alcohol. Randy Oliver *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm