# Beekeepers on small



## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Hi,

Beekeepers on small sc,

could you tell me what time off the year do you find your most v mite drops, and do you have more red mite or brown etc,

Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Back when I bothered to keep track, there were more in the fall, but never many to start with.

I never paid attention to the white ones at all and counted the red and brown as the same.


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

I don't do drop counts either.
Waya


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Tony,

I kept detailed notes when I first started with small cell. 

At mid-summer there's very little difference between the mite drop of large and small cell colonies. The vast majority of mites will be mature females without any bee caused damage.

But by August(in Wyoming)that changes. Bees on small cell comb actively cleanse the broodnest by detected and removing mite infected pupa. In the process, the mites are attacked. This results in over 90% of the fallen mites having bite marks. And mature females will only be a small part of the mite fall. Most will be immatures and males. 

The heavest mite fall will occur in Sept. Then it will taper off and pick up again early in the spring.

Once the bees get into equilibrium with the mites, there will be very little natural mite fall. For my hives it's 1 to 10 mature mites per week. Some of that mite fall will be the results of some broodnest cleansing on a very small scale with the immatures being very hard to find. It's easier to find the white antenna of the removed pupa that a few immatures. And that's all I've seen for years.

Regards
Dennis


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

I saw deformed wings on a young bee today when I was looking through the bees to do a dusting. This hive is my strongest and when I bought it back from the borage around 8 weeks ago it was wall to wall with brood,i get drops after dusting on this hive off around 60ish a week.

In hindsight I should off started dusting them when I took the supers off.

The nucs I stared earlier in the year got only 4.9mm foundation and are showing drops from 16 to 22 mites a week after dusting.

Other than using small and natural cell, what other management technique did you have to use until you were happy to leave the bees to get on with mites them selfs.

Do you find that you still have to intervene sometimes to help the bees out?

Tony


Tony


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Tony350i,

Initially, I followed the regression protocol hoping to select for a small cell survivor bee. What a mistake I made. Don't repeat it for yourself unless you want to learn about it the hard way ;>)

I would suggest you treat your bees with oxalic until you get enough small cell comb and the mites/bees reach an equilibrium. That should take about two years.

Since getting my bees in equilibrium on small cell , I haven't had to use any special management or intervene. You can read about it at:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/small-cell/ 

Regards
Dennis


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Thanks Dennis,

If I can get my drops down to 10 or less a week by the end off December do you think I should still use acid,

I like your madpage.com.

MB has a good one too.

Tony


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## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

I never paid attention to the white ones at all and counted the red and brown as the same.

--------------------
Michael Bush


what are the white ones all about? undeveloped mites?


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

yes


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