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Winter losses vs. Summer gains

180K views 644 replies 60 participants last post by  Oldtimer 
#1 ·
From time to time, there are complaints that there is too much bickering and arguing and people aren't getting to talk about what they want. Well, I can't do anything about that, people are people.

But what I can do and what I like to do is answer questions. So I want to give everybody the free and explicit opportunity to ask serious questions. If you want to be treatment-free, or if you are weighing your options, ask away. I want to help you. I'm not going to be answering challenges or defending my methods or viewpoint. I want to help you if you want to be helped. I want to tell you what you want to know, not what you want to hear. I had tons of questions and many of them will be the same ones you are asking now. You can even go back to 2003 and see them for yourself in the archives.

So ask away. You have my ear.
 
#350 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

> But its my understanding that others are able to succeed using normal foundation. If this is so, then yours, and Dee's, and the (only) breeders' success can be logically attibuted to genetics only.

That depends on your definition of "success". I still have not met anyone using large cell foundation who is not losing a colonies to Varroa in significant numbers which they are trying to make up with splits. I see a significant difference in success that cannot be logically attributed to genetics only. I got to the point of not losing them from Varroa with standard commercial queens on small cell. My only issue then was winter losses from southern stock, which is, in my opinion, entirely genetics.

>>You want to believe it's all genetics but that does not explain my success at all.
>Am I right in thinking Marla Spivak claims success without any mention of small cell - genetics only?

I have never heard Marla make that claim in writing or in person. I have heard Marla Spivak speak many times. I have NEVER heard her claim to have resolved the Varroa problem with genetics. She will talk about hygienic behavior and how that helps. She will talk about the idea of not treating and then tell you how to treat and how it's still necessary.

>Are you certain the genetic lines you got to replace all of the colonies lost to varroa wreren't better suited to varroa?

The lines I got were regular commercial stock from several sources. They did fine against Varroa:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beessctheories.htm

I went to local survivor stock, not for Varroa, but for wintering.

>I have noted consistencies in survivabilty of bees caught at specific locations around here. There seem to be great differences in swarm size, coloration, work ethic and overwintering abilities

Yes. So have I.

>even here in this 50 mile x 50 mile zone where I place my traps. These locations consistently provide bees with similar attributes (swarm size, coloration, work ethic etc.) year after year.

So have I.

>I don't know what else to attribute this to other than genetics. The entire region is mono cropped soy and corn, so it isn't like some of these bees are coming from easy to live locations. What do you think?

I think wintering is almost entirely genetics. I certainly believe that genetics is important to bee survival. It's just that I never had any survive Varroa until I change the cell size. So until then I had no survivors to breed from. When Tom Seeley took the survivor feral bees from Arnot forest and put them on large cell in his apiary they all died. He assumed because of the virility of the mites in the apiary as opposed to the ones in the forest, which is a reasonable theory. But, based on my experience I think it's because of the cell size.
 
#353 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

I still have not met anyone using large cell foundation who is not losing a colonies to Varroa in significant numbers which they are trying to make up with splits. [...] You want to believe it's all genetics but that does not explain my success at all.
I'm not sure that represents my views properly. As I've said I use starter strip only so that bees can choose their own sizes - and I do that in large part because of your testimony.

So I don't 'believe it's all genetics', but I do believe that neglecting genetics will cause failure.

>Am I right in thinking Marla Spivak claims success without any mention of small cell - genetics only?

I have never heard Marla make that claim in writing or in person. I have heard Marla Spivak speak many times. I have NEVER heard her claim to have resolved the Varroa problem with genetics. She will talk about hygienic behavior and how that helps. She will talk about the idea of not treating and then tell you how to treat and how it's still necessary.
Interesting. That isn't how her published work presents things.

Thanks for your comments as ever,

Mike (UK)
 
#351 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Mr Bush

I have not measured my cell sizes, but I have been experiencing fewer losses since I:
1 quit using foundation in brood chambers,
2 quit feeding,
3 quit treating, and
4 sourcing all my bees from swarm traps.

With all of those changes it is hard to use the scientific method to determine what the true cause is, but I am going to continue doing what I am doing. I don't care which factor is leading to better overwintering.
 
#355 ·
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>That isn't how her published work presents things.

Dr. Spivak has certainly made clear she thinks genetics will be the answer, and specifically that hygienic behavior will be the answer. However I have never heard her claim to have found that answer (Varroa tolerant bees that don't require treatment) nor that anyone else has. Can you point out where she says that?
 
#360 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

>That isn't how her published work presents things.

Dr. Spivak has certainly made clear she thinks genetics will be the answer, and specifically that hygienic behavior will be the answer. However I have never heard her claim to have found that answer (Varroa tolerant bees that don't require treatment) nor that anyone else has. Can you point out where she says that?
I can offer a bit of a selection. Reading them more closely it does seem to me that I may have read them in the first place with a little too much optimism:

http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center...ntrolling-Honey-Bee-Diseases-and-Varroa-Mites
This document isn't dated, but includes references up to 2003

"Our goal is to breed honey bees, Apis mellifera, resistant to diseases and parasitic mites to reduce the amount of antibiotics and pesticides used in bee colonies and to ensure that our breeding methods and stock are accessible to beekeepers everywhere."

"We have been breeding honey bees for resistance to diseases and Varroa destructor since 1994"

"We have bred hygienic behavior into an Italian line of honey bees. However, the behavior is present in all races and lines of honey bees in the US (and the world!), and can be easily selected for, using the methods described below. Our "MN Hygienic Line" of bees is available commercially in the US and has become widely accepted by beekeepers."

"However, our hope is that beekeepers select for hygienic behavior from among their favorite line of honey bee, whether it be Carniolan, Italian, Caucasian or other species. In this way, there will be a number of resistant lines avail-able within the U.S. to maintain genetic diversity -- the perfect way to promote the vitality of our pollinators."

"The effects of American foulbrood, chalkbrood and Varroa mites can be alleviated if queen producers select for hygienic behavior from their own lines of bees."

[MB That word 'alleviated' is rather vague. I agree it doesn't mean 'fixed' but it could mean 'reduced to little more than a light nuisance.

"Since 2001, we have been incorporating another trait into the MN Hygienic line called "Suppression of Mite Reproduction" or SMR. We also have been investigating the mechanism for the SMR trait to determine how bees can reduce mite reproductive success. Our results demonstrated that bees bred for SMR are both hygienic and have some yet unknown property associated with their brood that reduces the number of viable offspring the mites pro-duce. Combining the SMR trait into the hygienic line, therefore, helped increase the degree of hygienic behavior in our line, and added another factor that helps suppress mite reproduction. Field trials in commercial apiaries have demonstrated that the Hygienic/SMR cross significantly reduces mite loads in colonies relative to the pure Hygienic line and unselected lines of bees."

There is a more up to date approach at Bee Lab

http://beelab.umn.edu/Research/index.htm

"Our research includes:

Breeding Better Bees: The "Minnesota Hygenic Bees" have been bred in Minnesota. Hygienic bees detect and remove damaging diseases and parasites from the hive, helping bees defend themselves naturally."

Updates:
http://beelab.umn.edu/prod/groups/cfans/@pub/@cfans/@bees/documents/asset/cfans_asset_431892.pdf
Honey Bee Diseases and Pests Manual Updates for 2013 Marla Spivak and Gary Reuter

(This won't copy)

It seems to me that here there is something of a change of tune. The optimistic note of earlier publications is replaced by instructions to monitor and treat without fail. Yet the words seem to me to be addressed to those beekeepers who have been treating regularly. Dr. Spivak writes that 90% of colonies will die in their 2nd winter - a figure that she must know isn't true of many non-treatment beekeepers - like yourself.

Thanks again for pointing out the likely limitations in this approach.

Mike (UK)
 
#357 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

I know some of you successful TF guys think it's a waste of time to do mite counts, but aren't you at least interested in the mechanism by which your bees are tolerating mites. I, for one, am curious as to whether your bees are keeping numbers down or tolerating high numbers. It's really not that big a deal to do. How about it?
 
#358 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

I know some of you successful TF guys think it's a waste of time to do mite counts, but aren't you at least interested in the mechanism by which your bees are tolerating mites. I, for one, am curious as to whether your bees are keeping numbers down or tolerating high numbers. It's really not that big a deal to do. How about it?
planning to do just that cg3, in the upcoming weeks after i finish the honey harvest. i too am curious and want to see if the infestation rate is a predictor for overwintering loss. if so, i might consider brood breaking and requeening those with high counts in late summer.
 
#368 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

>a figure that she must know isn't true of many non-treatment beekeepers - like yourself.

She never indicates that, and I would assume she does not believe it or she would be looking into the "why".
Michael, this is something I have great difficulty in understanding. There seems to be remarkably little scientific rigor among bee "scientists."

A scientist working in particle physics who found a single particle acting in a way that contradicted his theory regarding that type of particle would immediately understand that his theory was incorrect or at the least, incomplete. But we have apparently reputable people in the field of bee husbandry who stand up and state that bees cannot be kept successfully without treatment.

I just read an irritating article in a bee magazine that attempted to debunk the idea of "natural" beekeeping. It began by saying that keeping bees in a box is unnatural. What? If you put a box of the right size out in a field and a swarm comes along and moves in, how is that different in any significant way from bees in a hollow tree? The only difference is that we provide movable frames for the combs. I can't see how that makes a whole lot of difference to the bees. The piece goes on to say in big scare letters, "If someone tells you not to feed, walk away!" Then the author relates that the colonies at the research station ran out of stores in February, and that they had to feed 800 to 1000 pounds of sugar a week to keep the colonies alive. There seemed to be no awareness there that perhaps they had taken too much honey in the previous season.

Even here on BeeSource you see all sorts of folks proclaiming that not treating is some sort of animal abuse that will inevitably end in death and despair. Most of these folks can be forgiven for believing something not borne out by reality, because they are not scientists. But I can't understand how scientists can simply ignore the existence of beekeepers like you and a number of others who have figured out how to keep bees successfully without treatment.

How is that "scientific?

Do they think you're lying? Do they think you're just lucky?

Luck is not a terribly useful concept in science.
 
#366 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Sheepdog: you can't be certain of a total lack of bees. I was unsure that there were bees here living in the trees until I started putting up traps and having them filled with swarms of bees. Then I started walking the patchy woods during hot humid evenings listening for buzzing and watching for bees. Crazy thing happened, I found out that there are feral bees living here right amongst the monocrop soy and corn. Living in the woods that are right next to the very fields where neonic coated seeds are planted every year.

I Think you have bees around there. If you know of a location where bees have been in the last thirty years and there are woods in the vicinity I would put some traps in those places. If you just want to test those spots take some honey there the next time you have an hour or two to spare. Put a small amount of the honey out and see if any bees come to investigate. You might just get a surprise. Good luck.
 
#378 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Sheepdog: you can't be certain of a total lack of bees. I was unsure that there were bees here living in the trees until I started putting up traps and having them filled with swarms of bees. Then I started walking the patchy woods during hot humid evenings listening for buzzing and watching for bees. Crazy thing happened, I found out that there are feral bees living here right amongst the monocrop soy and corn. Living in the woods that are right next to the very fields where neonic coated seeds are planted every year.

I Think you have bees around there. If you know of a location where bees have been in the last thirty years and there are woods in the vicinity I would put some traps in those places. If you just want to test those spots take some honey there the next time you have an hour or two to spare. Put a small amount of the honey out and see if any bees come to investigate. You might just get a surprise. Good luck.
Maybe. I'm a gardener and have long been concerned about the lack of bees. I am also a walker and I walked around my neighborhood (within a couple miles of my house) looking for honey bees. I did this for three years and found no bees. I'm assuming(maybe wrongly) all the bees I see around now are mine. I did have a couple hives swarm so you could be right and they made it out in the wild. It would be really cool if there are wild bees around me. I would like to catch some feral bees for starting more treatment free hives from survivor local bees.
 
#367 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

I have an area in mind that I suspect has very few if any bees. I have wanted to test it though. so I thought I woudl make up feeding posts which would be jars of sugar water attached to posts to see if any bees in the area are attracted to it. If that fails I know I have an area with 0 bees in it. but it would require feeding the bees 100% of the time to keep them there. but it would be a mating pure area for controlling breeding. It looks like this. Keep in mind you are looking well over 20 miles to that mountain.
Nature Blue Natural environment Natural landscape Mountainous landforms


The above is North of where I am at. this is what is south of us.
Nature Natural environment Natural landscape Atmosphere Mountainous landforms
 
#369 · (Edited)
Re: Ask Questions Here!

It's pretty understandable they ignore smaller treatment free beekeepers, because their work generally is not documented with rigorous scientific method. In addition the accepted wisdom is they will take quite a bit of losses. From a scientists point of view they would consider it normal that a small beekeeper could have a year with minimal losses, or even several years. To them, that does not mean the country's problems are solved.

It would be harder though to ignore a larger TF beekeeper such as say, Beeweaver.

They must surely know these people exist, I think where they are coming from is that the results are not being replicated across the country.

Before I get the hate mail, remember I didn't say they are right, I said it's understandable!
 
#370 ·
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Ray, I think Bee Scientists can't bring themselves to allow bees to die in order to find ones that can survive w/out treatments. Bee Scientists work for the Commercial Beekeeping Complex tm (the CBC), not necassarily the whole Beekeeping Community. Follow the funding.
 
#374 ·
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Ray, I think Bee Scientists can't bring themselves to allow bees to die in order to find ones that can survive w/out treatments. Bee Scientists work for the Commercial Beekeeping Complex tm (the CBC), not necassarily the whole Beekeeping Community. Follow the funding.
Mark, I must be getting too cynical in my old age. You're right, of course. In my more untrusting moments I wonder if the funding that comes from folks who want to sell treatment is only being used to demonstrate the necessity of more treatment. I guess that makes financial sense, in the short term.
 
#371 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

> But I can't understand how scientists can simply ignore the existence of beekeepers like you and a number of others who have figured out how to keep bees successfully without treatment.

I can't understand it either. It seems to me a good starting point would be for one of them to study the successful treatment free beekeepers and their bees and figure out what is happening.

>Do they think you're lying? Do they think you're just lucky?

I've always wondered the same. If it's only one or two you can either assume they were lucky (climate, location, not other colonies around?) or you can assume they are lying. But as more and more people are succeeding, how to you maintain that view?
 
#372 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

I have not the the article rhaldridge speaks of but I wanted to make some comments about the BeeWeaver bees as I have some. Consistency. It isn't there yet. I have some BeeWeaver queens that head monster colonies and others that limp along. The queens purchased from them are too expensive for me to pinch a so so queen and order another one. Besides I have no way of telling that I'll be getting a really good one. I imagine commercial beekeepers who have ordered from BeeWeaver in the past draw similar conclusions. I like the path they are on but not all the bees they ship are ready for prime time. On the positive side, they like every commercial operator I know, are working to improve.
 
#373 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

I have not the the article rhaldridge speaks of but I wanted to make some comments about the BeeWeaver bees as I have some. Consistency. It isn't there yet. I have some BeeWeaver queens that head monster colonies and others that limp along. .
Andrew, have you made increase from your good BeeWeaver queens? If so, how do the daughters do in your climate?
 
#375 ·
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I didn't mean that anything was underhanded. Just that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. There wasn't even a name for what is now called CCD until a well known and well connected beekeeper went looking for Federal Government help, along w/ friends and relatives.

I imaginbe the same is true w/ Research in general not just bee research.
 
#376 · (Edited)
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Mr. Parker, I went to your website and did find the information. I read all the places you have available and some of your blog, man you sure can write a lot, hope you are better at typing than I am. I have a couple more questions, and one of em is a doozy, I mean crazy stupid, so don't laugh, aw hell go ahead.... 1st, would wooden frames with 4.9 cell size with plastic foundation work as well as PF100? I'm going to start building my own woodenware, as I fancy myself (sic) a woodworker and have tablesaw and most tools needed, how much emphasis do you put on 11/4 centers spacing and small cell at the same time? Now for chuckle time, you said at your site something about logs, or in general round living quarters in nature, WHAT IF... I build an oblong or round wooden (like a cask) hive bodies, with removable frames to match (to be legal also), and make it 3-4 high. In your opinion would it make any difference at all, outside the cool factor. BTW in your pics I saw walmart sugar bags, it is beet sugar, GMO's so I'm told, if it don't say pure cane it's beet. Just sayin'

Walt

Barry, thanks!
I'm not inviting a discussion on GMO's or cane vs beet.
 
#397 ·
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1st, would wooden frames with 4.9 cell size with plastic foundation work as well as PF100?
I don't see why not, but you'd have to find the foundation. I don't know of any off hand. Barry has posted about cutting the foundation out of a PF-120, but then it's just a PF-120 with a wood frame. Whatever floats your boat. I'm finding it takes two years to get a full hive of drawn PF-120s, starting from scratch. But I keep big hives.


how much emphasis do you put on 11/4 centers spacing and small cell at the same time?
Not much. I like the idea and it works, but I don't preach magic bullets.


you said at your site something about logs, or in general round living quarters in nature, WHAT IF... I build an oblong or round wooden (like a cask) hive bodies, with removable frames to match (to be legal also), and make it 3-4 high. In your opinion would it make any difference at all, outside the cool factor.
I do not believe it would make much difference. What' you're describing has been done in a Warre sort of philosophy, though I don't know about round ones, I have seen hexagonal or octagonal ones. Warre isn't my style, not utilitarian enough.


BTW in your pics I saw walmart sugar bags, it is beet sugar, GMO's so I'm told, if it don't say pure cane it's beet.[/QUOTE]Well, it's sugar. My beekeeping philosophy doesn't rely on regular and universal feeding. The chances of any sugar getting into production honey is just about zero. Unlike syrup, I'm not convinced granulated sugar is stored at all. They seem to eat it only as needed.


I also believe that Solomans practice of taking all the brood from his medium strength hives to strengthen up nucs will also remove 90 % of the mites from that hive which will obviously increase the longevity of the donar hive.
That's not Solomon's practice. The only hives from which all brood is taken are weak ones which are dissolved completely. That means 100% of the mites and 100% of the bees, including the queen who gets mooshed and stuck in my pocket. I do borrow some brood from mid-tier hives as needed, but never all of it, and not most of them.


The only hives/bees I see in this thread that can be truely described as treatment free/mite tolerant are Solomans hives that are honey producers and aren't split so basically stay the same year after year with only the queen changing.
The queen isn't changed artificially in these hives unless they are mean. Perhaps 5-7 hives a requeened in any given year, maybe one or two production hives, after extraction, due to meanness.


I think TF keepers are selecting strong bees or weak mites.
If I were succeeding in breeding weak mites, then every other year or so, some of those nasty mites would get in from the neighbors and I'd have a slew of crashes. But that doesn't happen, though it's been predicted in this forum for years. So I can naught but assume that strong bees are the result, or at least a combination of the two.
 
#385 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Quote "He stated that at eh time he wrote the book the fossil record was not adequate as evidence". Unquote.

That much is true, Darwin did in fact say that.

BUT - not wanting to get into an argument about evolution, as I'm sure most of the participants of either persuasion would have a closed mind on the subject.
 
#386 ·
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Graham, Do you realize that the theory of evolution that is taught today is not the theory Darwin wrote? That it is actually the product of a long history of disproven theories and revisions?

But lets say you are correct. and that mites developing a resistance to treatment is in fact a product of evolution. This means that a species will respond and evolve when influenced by selection. Why then do you believe that mites will not evolve when influenced by the selection via resistant bees? How is it that you believe in evolution when it supports your beliefs but reject it when it does not? either mites evolve when influenced by selection or they do not. You cannot have it both ways. Treatment free bees will only result in alterated faster reproducing. faster running smaller mites that bees cannot groom themselves of and that require a shorter incubation period that the current mites do. In fact any influence you introduce in order to select for resistant bees will at the same time be working on the mite. both will evolve to survive it. If bees can be altered to small cell. so can, and will, the mites. To claim otherwise you argue for and against your own beliefs at the same time. You claim it works on the bees but not on the mites. that cannot possibly be true.
 
#387 ·
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Treatment free bees will only result in alterated faster reproducing. faster running smaller mites that bees cannot groom themselves of and that require a shorter incubation period that the current mites do. In fact any influence you introduce in order to select for resistant bees will at the same time be working on the mite. both will evolve to survive it. If bees can be altered to small cell. so can, and will, the mites.
You are quite right (about that thing) Daniel. Its been likened to an 'arms race'. Both predator and predated have to continually evolve in order to stay alive.

They say (I don't know if its true) that sharks have to keep swimming or they sink. Likewise species have to keep evolving, as their predators are continually improving their energy-extraction strategies.

And new predators are always around the corner.

If you stop the predated species evolving, its predators flourish, until there is nothing to predate on.

The predated species can often throw off the predator altogether, or reduce it to a minor irritant.

These are general principles - true for all living things. Apply to bees.

Mike (UK)
 
#393 ·
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I think TF keepers are selecting strong bees or weak mites. They probably don't know which they get when they have a successful hive. In these cases evolution cuts both ways, and a smart beek keeps the winning insect (if it is the bee).
 
#396 ·
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I thought you were refering to Tracheal mites in the US in 1984 and then after the appearance of Varroa, tracheal mites seemed to disappear. What happened to them? Where did they go? Where did they come from?

It seems to me that Varroa and Tracheal don't exist in a colony at the same time or no one looks for them at the same time. So, did bees instantly evolve/morph into something new which now deals w/ Tracheal mites?
 
#398 ·
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so did the bee and the tracheal mite arrive at host/parasite equilibrium or did the tracheal mite become extinct?

was the treatment for tracheal mites as widespread and aggressive back then as the treatment of varroa is today?
 
#400 ·
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so did the bee and the tracheal mite arrive at host/parasite equilibrium or did the tracheal mite become extinct?
The tracheal mite is not extinct. I would theorize that varroa pushed the early colonies so far that the same thing happened with TMs as is now happening with VMs. The bees got over them, and they don't end up being much of a problem anymore.


was the treatment for tracheal mites as widespread and aggressive back then as the treatment of varroa is today?
The impression I get from the literature I had from back then is that they were throwing everything they had at everything the bees had. Books and magazines from that era listed a litany of treatments and things that had to be done to keep the bees alive. At the same time Dee Lusby had already been keeping bees on small cell for a while, with conclusive evidence that her bees were not africanized at the time.
 
#403 ·
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so if i am understanding correctly jim, for the average beekeeper there was no easy way to make the diagnosis and not much in the way of treatments, unlike varroa.

sounds like a very different scenario, and one that nature seems to have taken care of.

perhaps with tm it was more like getting resistance to just one virus, as opposed to the frank parasitism along with having multiple pathogens being vectored by varroa.
 
#404 ·
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so if i am understanding correctly jim, for the average beekeeper there was no easy way to make the diagnosis and not much in the way of treatments, unlike varroa.

sounds like a very different scenario, and one that nature seems to have taken care of.

perhaps with tm it was more like getting resistance to just one virus, as opposed to the frank parasitism along with having multiple pathogens being vectored by varroa.
Well I could never make the diagnosis though many beekeepers claimed it was easy to spot a "k" wing appearance that was supposed to be an indication. A blender sampling done in just the right manner was supposed to give a good indication as well but I think the only sure way to tell if a bee was infected was dissection which was pretty time consuming.
 
#405 ·
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Diagnosis of tracheal mites requires disection of the prothorasic tracheal of the individual bees which is done in a Lab by taking off the head of ther bee and cutting a disc of the front of the thorax w/ a razor. The disc is placed in a solution of KOH (potasium hydroxide) over night which clears the muscle mass leaving the trachea (tracheii?). The trachea are then examined under a microscope to determine presence or absence of mites.

I have heard that some folks have done field diagnosis for presence w/ a hand lens. I have no experience doing that so I don't know how well it works.
 
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