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.
2 mites in 4 days is not much. Much below the threshold for treating.
Jim Altmiller
Quote from: sawdstmakr on July 02, 2019, 04:07:00 PM
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:
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.
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
They were all quite pale, definitely not the purple I commonly see in pictures.
Sounds like young mites that were not ready yet.
Adults are bronze colored.
Jim Altmiller
Well they were like a pale beige, maybe a light bronze, but not dark at all.
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
[attachment=0][/attachment]