Results

Powdered sugar is great. For donuts. Not so much for bees.

After a month of diligently dusting the bees every 3-4 days, I was finally able to measure the mite loads on Friday.

The results are not good: 100 per day for Droogie 1, 60 per day for Droogie 2. This huge increase in mites from the numbers that I counted in September is despite having fewer bees in each hive.

Here is a close-up picture of the sticky board that I put under the hive to do the mite count. I've put an arrow by several of the mites; many more are not marked.


This makes me sad. I haven't decided if I'll treat the bees or not- there is a small chance that they will survive the winter if I do nothing. But I'll probably order some formic acid pads and see if I can save them.