Sometimes I just pick up a phrase - I picture "roached" as meaning what happens to a cockroach after encountering poison bait. But that's not really WHEN I use it...No cockroaches in rural NE OH... I've just picked up "precious" too, as in, "That driver is being really precious about driving in THEIR lane as opposed to mine". I just saw "precious" used in print in a similar way!
And since I'm a nice girl, at least one of the definitions found previously for "roached" was quite unknown to me. ;)
Anyways, about mite thresholds and "what does it really mean" and, more importantly, "what SHOULD it really mean?!?!"
In May, my hives are full of bees, which is a Dadant deep (~ 2 mediums) and 3-4 shallow honey supers. So, at least 60000 bees.
But! There is max brood to - 8 Dadant deep combs, which are about 2 mediums deep, so about 16 mediums - so, plenty of places where mites are tucked away.
That's why even 1 mite in a sample of 300 bees is of great concern to me. Sure, maybe I am still at less than 100 mites, from killing mites over winter, and by chance I got one of those mites, but I'm not that special usually. Instead, it is more likely we are creeping towards 1% mite load (detectable on the phoretic bees), which would be 600 mites on the phoretic bees, and would be twice as many in the brood - so a 1% mite load on the phoretic bees means a 3% total mite load already because of the mites in the brood.
So that's why I assume the worst with a (n>0)/300 mite wash in May. Especially given that I treated vigorously with OAV in Fall/Winter.
My preferred method of mite check would be an OAV, then check the mite drop 2 days later. Can't do that right now with honey supers on...
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