# Mites??



## homemaid (Apr 26, 2011)

View attachment 32245
can anyone help me out here? I was just looking at this frame and I thought I saw mites but not sure never seen them before. If you look under the right claw of the frame lifter to the middle of the frame there is a small cluster of bees and a couple of them have a reddish dot on their backs.What do you think are these mites??


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## goodatit (May 1, 2013)

i'm unable to enlarge the pic enough to see.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I also can't see. Do a powdered sugar roll and see what you come up with. 
should be a U tube video on how to do it.
We just automatic figure they are in the hive. do a formic acid (mite away pads) treatment in the spring and keep rotating the drone comb every 18 to 20 days.

Here is what a mite looks like.




Unless your raising queens you don't need the drones so I make it a point to use a capping scratcher open the drone cells to look for mites. If I start finding more than one mite per drone cell I will remove honey supers dust the bees with powdered sugar and add formic acid pads per the instructions.

You can also use a stick board if you have screen bottom boards.


 Al


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## homemaid (Apr 26, 2011)

Ok thank you both for the help too bad I didnt have a better picture. I can blow it right up on my computer but I am not sure if they are mites. We have solid bottom boards on the hives. This hive had gone queenless and we just gave them a new queen last week. She also is on this picture on the bottom right she is a newly mated queen and is a dark chocolate brown.


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## homemaid (Apr 26, 2011)

I am guessing now that these are not mites. The more i look at them they are at the exact same spot on all the bees I see it on. I am guessing it is a reflection in my picture. Thank you for looking..


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## GeoCitizen (Feb 24, 2014)

I agree with the other comment. Just assume you have them and treat in fall and spring. Many will reject this idea since you may be adding needless chemicals to the hive. However, Varroa is so ubiquitous these days its a safe bet. If you had it once chances of doing a 100% eradication is near zip and they build up rapidly.

Right now I have a hive that seems to be going gang busters, but during my last weekend inspection I opened 10 drone cells at random and saw mites in 8 of 10. That's a problem! Since you shouldn't add chemicals with the supers on, I'm running race to harvest and treat before my good hive goes seriously down hill. I'll do the sugar dusting this weekend to give them a chance until I bring in the formic acid treatments, which is not the big contaminate the "all natural" beekeepers will lead you to believe.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Formic acid has been an accepted method of mite treatment for many years in Canada. It is also a natural ant produced chemical that man has been able to copy. The instructions on Mite away pad say it is safe to use it with honey supers on. We don't how ever.

Make sure you have a respirator and rubber gloves when handling the pads. they are a bit on the sticky side.

We dust with powdered sugar about once a month. Run screen bottom boards and drone comb that gets rotated to the freezer about every 18 to 20 days.

 Al


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## homemaid (Apr 26, 2011)

ok thank you for your help. This is our first time dealing with mites our 2nd year with bees.


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## GLOCK (Nov 22, 2012)

OAV works great . 
Just saying.


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## goodatit (May 1, 2013)

alleyyooper said:


> Formic acid has been an accepted method of mite treatment for many years in Canada. It is also a natural ant produced chemical that man has been able to copy. The instructions on Mite away pad say it is safe to use it with honey supers on. We don't how ever.
> 
> Make sure you have a respirator and rubber gloves when handling the pads. they are a bit on the sticky side.
> 
> ...


what does the powdered sugar do? thanks in advance.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Dusts the bees with some thing sweet so they clean it off each other. In the process it knocks the mites off and they fall though the screen bottom and can't get back on the bees .

 Al


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## goodatit (May 1, 2013)

thats really good advice. thanks


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## popscott (Oct 6, 2004)

Yea, I've studied the little critters..... I took plenty of pictures and videos under the microscope..
http://www.justkiddinfarm.com/varroa/varroa.html

Screened bottom work if you keep the hive up off the ground a little or so or they may crawl back up.


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