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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] sticky board test after treatment
  • Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:13:51 -0400

Elisabeth,

I checked the Mite Away website (http://www.miteaway.com/index.html) and Randy Oliver's report on using MAQS (http://scientificbeekeeping.com/miticides-2011/), and didn't find a specific answer to your question.

I think it is quite possible that your results on Day 11-13 may be exactly what you would expect. MAQS not only kill the phoretic mites (the ones hanging onto adult bees) but also kill the mites under the pupal cappings. That's one of the things that makes MAQS so effective. So maybe the dead mites you are seeing on Day 11-13 are the dead mites that have been freed by the emerging bees --- they are pulled out as the bees clean the now-empty cell.

Randy Oliver did his efficacy check on Day 23, well after all the under-the-cappings bees would have emerged. I would reserve judgement on how well MAQS has worked until you test again in a week or two. Or --- if you do a sugar-shake test, it won't be affected by the under-the-cappings effect, since it only tests for phoretic mites. So maybe that would be a good post-treatment test. If you didn't do a sugar-shake pre-test then you can't directly compare, but if the post-treatment sugar-shake mite level is zero then that would be very nice.

Please let us know how it turns out! I put MAQS on last Thursday, so am eager to compare notes about how well it works, how much damage it causes and perhaps most importantly, how well the treated hives do next spring & summer.

Randall Austin


On 10/2/2011 12:28 PM, Elisabeth Curtis wrote:
CAH4oJragJduMqj5HrO6Djosuh42tw30-xB7SJsdMvRZx4duK_A AT mail.gmail.com" type="cite">We determined that our mite population was too high for comfort and put the Mite-Away Quick Strips on for ten days. Took 'em off on Thursday and did a sticky board test Friday to Sunday. There are tons of mites, more than we saw before the treatment, but they all seem dead. Did I do the sticky board test too soon after taking off the strips and are these dead mites still falling off as a result of the treatment? Or did the treatment fail completely?  I've always wondered with the sticky board test whether one should make a distinction between mites that seem dead and those that are waving their little legs around, b/c there always seem to be a goodly number that are lifeless. I normally just count 'em all. Thanks! -Elisabeth Curtis


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