>>Why does pale colored mites indicate there is emerging brood in a hive?
>
>The pail color is an immature mite which can happen only during
>reproduction cycle inside capped brood cell. When the bee emerges these fall
>off. They do not count as they cannot cause future damage.

Thanks Bill.  I have been searching for a page that explains exactly where 
the cutoff is between a viable and a non-viable young adult female mite and 
yours comes as close as any.

The real question, though, in my mind  comes from Randy's earlier comment:

"In a natural drop, if brood is present, about half of the mites that drop 
"are ones coming out of emerging brood, that would not survive for 
"more than a few hours (Lobb 1997 Mortality of Varroa jacobsoni 
"Oudemans during or soon after the emergence of worker and drone 
"honeybees, Apidologie 28:367). 

I found that fascinating, since it explains things I have seen and provides 
just enough information to make me really curious.

Can you shed any light on this question?

Jean-Pierre Chapleau provided this explanation: 
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/incl/bj10.h13.jpg
of which mites are to be counted, but did not indicate if they all can be 
expected to survive after leaving the cell.

I have seen some fairly pale mites in alcohol shakes, so I gather 
they at least were able to catch a bee and hitch a ride.

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