New Powdered Sugar Application

[Aisha]

Or at least it's new to me.

There are some *great* photos of Birdchick taking 250 bees in a jar and applying powdered sugar to this small sample of bees to count mite drop for each of her hives.


http://www.birdchick.com/2007/09/rolling-bees-in-powdered-sugar.html

She has a great blog too with very good videos.

[Dave W]

This "new" powdered sugar application was developed by University of Nebraska graduate student Paula Macedo. Some beekeepers have been using it since 2005.

Ether and powdered sugar rolls do not accurately predict the total number of mites in colony. Sometimes you get an overestimate, sometimes an underestimate. If you take 2 samples of bees from the same colony and do an ether roll w/ one sample and a powdered sugar roll w/ the other, you do not get the same answer. A sugar roll typically gives you a larger estimate of how many mites are on the bees [BC, 4/02, p32].
 When using ether roll or sugar shake test, you should figure you have twice as many mites as you actually find [Betterbee Catalog, 2006, p52].

When there is a large quantity of brood (in spring and early summer), a high percentage of the mites will be in the brood rather than on adult bees. Conversely, when the brood amount declines in late summer and autumn, large numbers of mites will be found on adult bees, making it seem as if there is a major increase in mite population

The best method of monitoring Varroa mites is w/ the use of a sticky board.

[Jeffzhear]

I also just learned how to do the sugar roll a few weeks back when the PA inspector inspected my hives. Pretty neat technique and what's best of all is the bees are put back into the hive after the test alive and well...

[Jim Fischer]

> This "new" powdered sugar application was developed by University
> of Nebraska graduate student Paula Macedo.

Who "stole" the idea from Kamran F of U Finland, who put an
article in ABJ June 2000 about the method as both a detection
approach, and a control. Proper credit was NOT given to this
innovative Finnish researcher by anyone.

> Some beekeepers have been using it since 2005.

You mean 2000.
That's when Paula did a demo at EAS in August, which was in MD that year.
Of course, some folks (like me) started using the technique when the
ABJ article came out earlier the same summer.

[Aisha]

The best method of monitoring Varroa mites is w/ the use of a sticky board.

Thanks for all the great info, DaveW. I will stick with the sticky board (pun intended), and powder them all from the top super.

Rolling them seems like too much work. I like to be lazy.