> Impressed by your and allen's results we did our experiment:
 > we shaked 59 jars with 1 spoon of icing sugar and more or less 100 ml 
 > of bees in a 390 ml jar with full net lid, quite hard for 90 seconds.
 > The result is that sugar dislodged a mean of 94.9% of total mites

I guess I just did not shake hard enough or long enough.  I just did the 
same as I have been taught to do with alcohol.

 >...After 1 hour more or less 10 bees (3%) > were dead... I don't know
 > Which was the life expectancy of the others

My main reason for wanting to use sugar -- rather than alcohol -- is to 
preserve the bees.

Torturing and killing bees this way does not seem to offer any 
advantages over killing them swiftly in alcohol, and it requires more 
time spent shaking them -- plus the counting is more difficult.

Anyhow, I think I have concluded my examination of sugar, alcohol and 
drops and formed conclusions.  I'll be summarizing my thoughts in my 
diary at http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary shortly.  Most of my writing 
is there more or less in real time, and a bit bleeds over here.

Recent diary topics are constructing a boom loader (c/w drawings and 
parts list), building extractor drives, making a bee truck out of a 
pickup, skunk control, PF-100s and Pierco, etc., applying formic pads, 
mite drops and alcohol washes, Apivar, and patty feeding in fall, to 
mention only a partial list...

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