>Test procedure is to impale through thorax a bee on sloped surface of a cork, Pull off head and examine exposed trachea for staining.
That's the classical technique, but it is easy to do it in the field if you have a 10x or 20x hand lens and a pair of fine tweezers. Put the one arm of the tweezers behind the first pair of legs and pull of the head and legs; this exposes the trachea and with the hand lens you can examine them for staining.
When I first started keeping bees (1981) I was very concerned about acarine and spent time checking and treating. However, I then decided to ignore it and breed from the survivors - now it is no longer a problem.
Doing the same with varroa now...
Best wishes
Peter
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W
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