GregV:
..am I correct in assuming that you only took mite counts on October 13th?
Thus, when evaluating the stock over Thanksgiving are you assuming mite incursions based on variable(s) other than a contemporary mite wash/drop (i.e. cluster size, perforated cappings, frass or some other factors)?
You may have already covered this, but is your purchased breeder queen (#5) of bona fide Primorski stock? If so, is it possible that this may have something to do with the smaller clusters found in her daughter colonies (i.e. 2, 3 and 6)?
Hey Russ,
I reported on October 13 but the actual counting activity took me about a week (not done all at once).
Pretty much weeks 1 and 2 of October when I counted.
I did some spot observations prior to the T-Giving day.
But on the T-Giving I did the comprehensive round about across all the yards I have (just a convenient timing).
I don't really follow any hard regiment.
Some hives (dead or mostly dead) I check more thoroughly to see what did them in - pretty much it is a classic mite story in late fall - presence of the mite-injured brood (never hatched) is a typical indicator.
Other hives I check very superficially - a cluster on 6-7 frames at this time is very a good sign as-is and does not need much more disturbing.
The #5 is of unclear origin.
I would not call it Primorski stock.
It originates from that breeder in the Olympic peninsula, WA who started from some forest feral stock (I have a link few pages back).
#2 and #3, I suspect, have had issues where these queens were plugged into colonies that had too much mite load.
#2 was beyond sustainable and is now terminated.
#3 is of critically small size and will require heating to survive (which I will do).
So I theorize above as how my low mite counts were misleading maybe.
#5 (mother) and #6 are of smallish size.
In general these are bees of Northern traits I can tell - conservative.
So - I see a real benefit in a one-time OA treatment of a colony that is to receive a promising queen.
For sure I had a chance to apply OA to #2 as there was a long brood-less window there.
Also there was an opportunity to apply OA in #6.
Going forward, I am thinking I should do the OA when presented a chance to do it - so to not be wasting promising queens over and over and over. The promising queens are not able to turn infested colonies around, I had this issue happening many times over. This season, the apparent low mite counts in #2 and #3 fooled me.
I am now trending to think that the phoretic mite count (if done consistently every X days - e.g. once per week) will show that there is some variable half-sine function is describing the phoretic population in many instances.
And thus - with a single counting event - you are prone to hit a high or the low or some slope (trending up or down) of the sinusoid function and totally mis-read the situation.