[karenarnett]

I've been doing sugar rolls and more recently alcohol or windshield cleaner (primarily methanol) fluid washes on my hives. Doing everything the same as in the past with the sugar rolls, but not finding any mites. My hives have had a fair amount of broodlessness while queens were superceded this year (no swarms) but that shouldn't get rid of all phoretic mites. I take my sample from a frame of mixed capped and open brood, as often as I can from emerging brood frames. So what else could be going wrong? I'm new to the wash test method. Just did two this week an no mites. Could I not be shaking the jar hard enough to dislodge mites? Could mites be getting stuck in among the dead bodies, or are they supposed to float to the top of the liquid?

Or could I just be having a lucky year with low levels of mites?

 

[Fivej]

What is the methanol percentage of the fluid you are using? I suspect that is the reason. J

 

[ericweller]

Also, it needs to be young, recently emerged nurse bees. Shake the frame slightly to make the older bees fly and use the ones that stay on the frame as your test subjects.

 

[Akademee]

If you are doing the powdered sugar roll, make sure that you are using brand new sugar, if it clumps up at all, it is useless as a sugar roll, if it gets wet, it is useless too. Are you giving the bees time to groom themselves after you coat them? I leave my bees grooming for 3-5 minutes so they can knock off all the mites.