Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DISEASE & PEST CONTROL => Topic started by: Mamm7215 on July 02, 2019, 02:38:45 pm
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3rd inspection on Saturday. Good news is I'm getting better at recognizing and finding things. Found 1 empty queen cup but noticed 2 mites on my bottom sticky board. Granted, I hadn't checked in 4-5 days so it would seem to indicate a fairly small load but I'll be keeping a close eye on it. I put a clean board in yesterday so I'll check every 24 hrs for 3 days to see what else shows up. I'm thinking of using Formic Pro as a formic option. I also have OA and a vaporizer but don't want to take my honey super off so will likely do the formic if mite count increases. I've been pretty lucky to have a good laying queen and a strong hive and want to keep on top of it, for now though I'll just be monitoring.
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2 mites in 4 days is not much. Much below the threshold for treating.
Jim Altmiller
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2 mites in 4 days is not much. Much below the threshold for treating.
Jim Altmiller
I concur with that. I'd be happy to have mite levels that low. :grin:
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Found another 2 last night on a 24hr check. Both mites were dead. The first 2 I saw were still crawling and the first 2 were on the sticky board. These 2 dead ones were just on a plain old replacement bottom I put in as the 1st board had some mold on it so I threw it out. I'll continue to do daily checks.
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There is a good chance that they were mites that were removed by bees from brood. What color were they they? The lighter they are the younger they are.
Jim Altmiller
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They were all quite pale, definitely not the purple I commonly see in pictures.
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Sounds like young mites that were not ready yet.
Adults are bronze colored.
Jim Altmiller
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Well they were like a pale beige, maybe a light bronze, but not dark at all.
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4 mites tonight, 3 dead. 1 was a darker bronze, other 3 were the pale almost translucent tan. Living one was pale. One positive tonight, I successfully tested my homemade OAV vaporizer. I got a 120v to 12v power supply off amazon. I had built the unit originally with a car battery in mind but this seemed easier to use at the house. I can disconnect the wires to use remotely with a battery if needed. Power supply puts out 30 amps. Works good so far. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B06XJVYDDW?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
Glow plug I'm using is this one: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B000C9N54C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1