Hello Allen,

Since moving away from chemical treatment for mites and onto small cell,
I have been a daily observer or fallen and phoretic mites. I used a
plexiglass inner cover and could observe the bees crawling on the top
bars and those crawling on the plexiglass to see both sides of bees in
the hives.

Before using small cell most of the mites would be found on the bottom of
the bee between the first couple of segments on the front of the abdomen.
They could almost completely fit underneath them but were obvious once at
seeing a few. Very seldom where they observed on the top side of the bee
and when seen there were usually on the thorax late in the winter.

With the small cell bees things were different. The mites would be
located in one of four locations. The first was on the front edge of the
abdomen beneath the area where the bees wing would cross over it. The
second was on the bottom of the abdomen almost directly beneath and
slightly to the rear of those on the top side of the bee.  They
definitely prefer the bottom side.

With one exception I never saw a single mite between the segments of a
small cell bee. The only exception was very late in winter when some of
the bees seemed to resemble their larger cell sisters in size and I saw a
couple on mites between the segments on a single bee. I daily monitored a
hive throught it's collapse in late winter.

Recent studies suggest that bees sampled at the entrance will have 4 to 5
times fewer mites than the actual rates inside the hive. So I guess it
must be a numbers game. At that rate with a 5% infestation a person might
have to see a single mite or two in a hundred bees and if missed might
have to look at another hundred.

After watching hives collapse from varroa the external symptoms of the
bees themselves are a more obvious indicator. Chewed wings, crawlers,
varroa feces in the cells, and chew pupa are some of the most obvious to
look for without actually counting the mites.

Best Wishes
Dennis