Tiny white mite looking things???

[John D. Smith]

I was cleaning some frames today and under the wedges (along with some wax moth worms!) were these tiny little white bugs. They looked like head lice and were about that size (or the size I asssume head lice are). They weren't Varroa, I had those last year. They were about the size of a period with a brownish head. I've never seen them before, nor have I read about them. Any guesses?

[Michael Bush]

So they are about the size and shape of a varroa but white? Could they be juvenile varroa that haven't develped that red shell yet?

[John D. Smith]

No, they were much smaller. They were a little larger than a period at the end of a sentence. I looked up head lice and these things looked structurally more like a termite than a louse.

[John D. Smith]

When I say they were under the wedges of the frames, I mean they were sealed under the wedges. When I pryed the wedge up to put new foundation in, these things were living under the wedge in the tunnels and debris of the wax moth larvae. Could these things be a wax moth parasite? Maybe they eat wood/crap and just happen to be inside a bee hive. They remind me of those bugs you find in old books at the library.

[Michael Bush]

Are they more long like a louse (singular of lice) or round like a mite?

[mark williams]

wax moth is a little worm,could it be termites?,does it have leg's if so it's not wax moth.

[John D. Smith]

It without question is not a varroa mite or a wax moth larvae. They were so small that I couldn't count the legs to see if it was an insect or an arachnid. I should have collected a sample for identification. My first response was to kill them. I didn't want them on me or in my hives. They were too small to be a termite and didn't have the same structure i.e. big head. They did resemble a termite in the nymph stage, but again they were very very smal, white oval body with a brown detached head which was smaller than the body. I'm sure other frames have them, but I don't want to wreck one just to look under the wedge, but I might.

[Robert Brenchley]

My guess - and it is only that - is that they may well be harmless mites which feed on detritus in the hive. I get them in mine, and i don't worry. In a natural hive, you'd expect to find small scavengers; we probably kill most of them off as a side-effect of mite treatments.