We had Jamie Ellis, from UNF, do a talk at our last bee meeting. He talked about testing. If my memory serves me right, he said to take a quart jar, make up a #8 screen for the lid, fill the jar with a full handfull of bees, put the lid on, sprinkle in confectionery sugar to give them a good covering, wait about 5 minutes, pour out the sugar and mites on a white surface. you can then count the mites. No shaking of the bees is necessary. Your bees stay nice and calm and you just turn them loose.
Jim