>The key is that the sight of a large mite drop from an OAV
>treatment has to be put into the perspective of what you would get from an
>alcohol wash


Thanks, Bill, I get what you're saying. I don't know of anyone doing accelerated mite drops using OAV to determine their infestation level, but I get that they could be surprised without knowing how to interpret the drop data.  Having said that, most folks don't get drop data anyway because, with the exception of an accelerated drop, stickyboards measure total mite population and not just phoretic mites.  I wrote an article based on F.J. Martin's work that explained drop data using seasonal multipliers that make an attempt to get at the influence of brood on counts. 



Martin, S. (1998a). A population model for the ectoparasitic mite Varroa jacobsoni in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. Ecological Modelling, 109(3), 267-281.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4f58/1d5e95c90a972d14be20c6c2207db90e1cec.pdf

Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT

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