# Am I doing this right?



## Nardi (Jan 22, 2013)

OK, I've been cutting out drone brood & checking for mites. After reading about sugar dusting & knowing I have mites, I decided I should dust my hives. I don't have screened bottom boards, but I did place a piece of cardboard into each of the 3 hives I dusted & used about 1 cup of powdered sugar for each 10 frame deep box ( less for 8 frame & medium boxes ). I left it there for about 6 hours. When I removed the cardboard, I only found 2 or 3 mites from each hive. I'm sure I should have seen many more. Did I miss a step ?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i've no experience with sugar dusting nardi so i'm not sure, and there are some who argue the effectiveness of doing so is debatable. 

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/pow...weet-and-safe-but-does-it-really-work-part-1/

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/pow...weet-and-safe-but-does-it-really-work-part-2/

most that use the method either have a screened bottom board that is open to the ground so the mites fall out of the hive, or a 'sticky' board at the bottom that traps the mites preventing them from getting right back on a bee or climbing back up into the hive. it would seem that just having cardboard down there wouldn't work.

it's not a huge deal as far as i'm concerned, but cutting out drone brood and sugar dusting for mites are treatments, and your question would have more appropriately been asked in the 'diseases and pests' or main 'bee forum' instead of here in the treatment free section.

in my opinion if it becomes necessary to help the bees with mites you might as well use something proven effective. the organic acids may be a good choice in that regard, and there is a lot of info on those in the other subforums.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

You really need a screened bottom board (SBB) when doing a sugar shake. The powdered sugar coats the bees, Manes them slick, the cleansing efforts dislodge the mites who then fall to the ground through the SBB where they are unable to return to the hive. The sugar does not kill them, so without the SBB they fall to the bottom board then crawl back up to the bees. A sticky board does not help because the sugar covers the board.


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## Nardi (Jan 22, 2013)

Thank you for the info. The bees seem to be doing well, despite my efforts.

Best, Nardi


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Nardi said:


> Did I miss a step ?


Kinda. Thing is the sugar does not actually kill the mites it just annoys them so some will drop off the bees. So waiting 6 hours before seeing how many were on the cardboard was long enough that any mites there would have dusted themselves off and hitch a ride back on some passing bee. It is surprising you found any mites, the ones you did find may have been aging ones that died, mites like all other insects have a finite life span.


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