[c10250]

A buddy of mine wound up with a dead out. Plenty of bees in a ball, frozen in place, with brood, and plenty of stores around the brood. I believe he had a 16" ball of bees, dead.

He did an alcohol wash on the dead bees (1 cup of bees) and found that he had a 3% infestation rate. I'm not sure what that indicates, as this was done on dead bees. Any thoughts on whether or not Varroa contributed?

I guess what I'm asking is what kind of metric is an infestation rate on dead bees? Accurate? Is 3% high, low??

TIA
Ken

 

[Michael Bush]

It's hard to say what you measure when they are dead. I would think most of the Varroa would fall off as the bees die, so that number may be very low compared to the real infestation. Than again, maybe I'm wrong, but based on the number of dead Varroa on the bottom boards of hives that died from Varroa that were no longer on bees, that would be my guess.

 

[c10250]

Yes. That's what I'm thinking too. A 3% infestation rate on DEAD bees is probably a lot higher in reality.