Varroa Count Results

Four days after putting the insert in, we removed it and put it on our patio table to inspect in the sunlight.

With the help of Ted Hooper and the Defra leaflet, we counted just 10 still varroa mites, but the board was also covered with two or three types of other, smaller, moving insects. From the Defra pictures, I dont think that the largest of these was Braula coeca (?) because it was considerably smaller than the Varroa. It looked like a little red spider but there were literally hundreds of them scurrying all over the board.

The next size down was really too small for detailed observation to the naked eye. It just looked like little brown specs moving around. I am hoping these were Melittiphis?

We have decided not to worry about these for the time being... Instead, we divided 10 varroa mites by 4 days to get a daily mite drop of 2.5. According to Defra, that figure for this time of year means that control is not yet required. We will do a first icing sugar dust at our next inspection and see how the bees react and in the meantime have asked Norman for his advice. Now I just have to dispose of the sticky paper - yuk!