Monitoring Mites under SBB

[Pond Creek Farm]

Good evening all.  I slid a board with vasaline under the SBB last night to try to monitor the mite load.  I went back to give it a look tonight, but am not sure I will able to tell anything from what I saw.  There was all kinds of junk on there.  A few ants (a problem I dealing with  this weekend with Michael Bush's borax recipe), and what appeared to be wax shavings along with asundy other crud).  I cannot be sure about what all was on there.  In any event, is this normal?  Just what exactly should one see on a sticky board, and what exactly does a mite look like when stuck?

[qa33010]

    I've gotten pieces of wax, bees, pollen as well as dirt, mites, SHB, ants, flys and a wide assortment of things.  Just day to day activity from the inside and outside of my hives.

     For ants I just repel them with a smear of FGMO on the finger around the outside and inside the SBB.

The mites I saw are just like the pictures I've seen and when I use a high powered magnifying glass I sometimes see where their exoskeleton has been dented by bee bites.  If you relly want hands on education of mites cut out some drone brood and open them up and remove the drone pupae.  Eventually you will/may see a drone with more than just mom and a daughter.  You'll get to see different stages.

[trapperbob]

 They are even smaller than you may think but they are kind of dark brown to redish brown in color a magnifying glass can be a big help so as to determin what you see in the debri. To me they look like little ticks.

[Michael Bush]

Mites are slightly larger than a period on a page.  They are purplish brown (at least the adults are).  They are slightly oval.  Get a magnifying glass if in doubt.

To give you an idea of the size and what they look like here they are on bees:
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/Varroa2.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/Varroa3.jpg

More info:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#varroa

[Kathyp]

i don't use a sticky board because of all the gunk.  i just pull the board and look for mites.  once you see a couple, you'll have no trouble picking them out.  if i only see one or two, combined with finding that the hive is healthy, i don't worry.  if i start finding more, or see signs in the hive that they are building up, then i worry.  last year, i found that the powdered sugar did a fine job of knocking the mites back for the summer.  used apiguard in the fall and was pretty much broodless for the winter.  so far, so good.

http://rnoel.50megs.com/2000/part4.htm

http://www.kanawhavalleybeekeepers.com/varroa.htm

http://somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com/2007/10/06/i-hate-these-sooo-much/

maybe some of these will help.  you can google image varroa mite,  mite sticky board, etc.

[Pond Creek Farm]

I smeared the vasaline so that the mites would stick to the board.  Is this a needless step?  The SBB came with a board, and I just assumed that I would need to put someting on there to keep the mites stuck in pace.  Am I wrong?  If they will simply fall on the board and stay there to be counted, that would indeed be easier.

[annette]

I believe you need to make the board sticky. I started out using vaseline, which works great, but what a mess. Now I am using PAM spray (for cooking) and it works just as good as the vaseline and much easier.

[Pond Creek Farm]

Cooking spray sounds like a great idea.  The vasline is quite the mess.  I'll give it a try.

[Cindi]

Pam is fast and it works well.  Beautiful day in this great life.  Cindi

[Michael Bush]

I just use nothing on the board and monitor the dead ones.  I think the rest is too messy, but if you buy some contact paper it's not quite so messy.