# Organic Mite Control



## Hawkster (Apr 16, 2010)

I love my bees, maybe too much. the control I have decided to use is one I call grooming. I pull the hive bodies and put them aside . then taking a soft bristled tooth brush I brush each bee to remove any mites, it takes a while and some return to the pulled hive to get groomed again :9 I think they like it. After grooming each bee the hard part starts, carefully decapping each pupae I remove the larvae (pupae?) and remove any mites that might be attached, taking a tiny air brush i then clean out the cell. carefully re-inserting the pupae and gluing the cap back on take a while but its worth it. at the end I have a completely might free hive and an intimate knowledge of each bee in it. I might start getting them little name tags next


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Hawkster said:


> I might start getting them little name tags next


Velcro buckles on the collars work best, in my experience.


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## Hawkster (Apr 16, 2010)

I was thinking a leather collar but will look into velcro !


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

At one minute each for cleaning if you work fast and 60,000 bees per hive you are looking at 1000 hours of work. At an 8 hr day you are looking at 125 days of work...and since the cycle of bees is about 20 days you are looking of a turn-over greater than the speed you can clean so good luck with this.


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## Hawkster (Apr 16, 2010)

hard work never hurt anyone!


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

That's a whole new definition to the term, "hive maintenance".


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## Rick 1456 (Jun 22, 2010)

Well,
Why don't you attach the bristles to the hive entrance so the bees coming and going have to "squeeze" in and out. Should knock the mites off. Probably the pollen too, but hey, nothing is perfect. Gotta think on the pupae thing some more. Maybe with all the spare time on your hands now you don't have to brush the bees, the pupae thing might work for you.
Use a weak glue.


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## guyross (Feb 18, 2011)

Rock on while you have the eyes for it.


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## Daniel palmer (Jul 23, 2011)

i knit socks for mine


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## SPRUCE BEE (Mar 14, 2009)

Hawkster,
Maybe to speed things up you could retrofit a chain uncapper with bristle brushes. It shouldn't bee too hard to retrain the bees since you have already to your current mite grooming process. And for the mites in the brood, have you thought about going with some sort of less invasive micro scope surgery through the cell caps similar to what surgeons use for gall bladder surgery? I hope this catches on! Maybe we can put some of the 20 million un-employed people back to work in this country. Good luck!


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## Hawkster (Apr 16, 2010)

Hmm using lasers to smite the mites, that has promise. With NASA winding down there will probably be a glut of rocket engineers just looking for their next challenge... it beats my breeding program for tiny grooming monkeys, that fell flat on its face once the cat discovered the little critters


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

And I thought hand painting them with powdered sugar was time consuming, LOL.


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## zippelk (Sep 1, 2010)

what a waste of time! I gave away my bees and now I just take some HFCS, stir in a sprinkle of miticide and antibiotics, and eat it with biscuits...yummy!


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## Seymore (May 1, 2009)

Heyyyyy!!!! You copied MY method, Hawkster!!!!


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## thenance007 (May 25, 2011)

Deleted


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Foraging bees don't carry very many mites, if any.


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## Dave Burrup (Jul 22, 2008)

I told a friend that I was listening to the bees with a stethoscope, he asked if I took their blood presure too. I am trying to make a blood pressure cuff for them now, but attaching the connecting tube is giving me problems.


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## feltze (May 15, 2010)

My preference is a miniture car wash (bee wash) with rotating brushes. Had to tune down the dryer blower too as it kept shooting them back out the front door. It's much faster and each bee can choose when they need a quick shower. The only problem is I can't decide on what shampoo to use as I just hate testing them on the rabbits


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