From an initially skeptical reception1 the sugar roll or sugar shake (instructions in the later picture) seems to have become the standard method of assaying a colony’s varroa mite load for backyard beekeepers. While most beekeepers improvise their sugar roll equipment (easily done2), the Michigan Pollinator Initiative sells this handy kit, which provides all the properly-sized needful things in a compact carrying bucket that doubles as the mite-counting receptacle. It even comes with the powdered sugar although you must add your own water.
It also contains an instruction sheet just in case you can not quite recall the procedure. (Clicking on the thumbnail will show a larger, more easily read image.) As usual, the bees refuse to read the instructions and cooperate. They insist on impatiently crawling and flying out of the bucket, scoop, or jar so it is quite useful to have a helper.
While we intend no criticism, for it is an admirably constructed kit, we have made a few alterations and addenda.
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1Inaccurate results were being obtained because of user error. Bees not taken from the brood area. Not enough bees sampled. Bees not shaken long enough. etc. The commonest error seems to be forgetting to wait the two minutes to let the mites drop.
2The hardest part seems to be finding the #8 hardware cloth to replace the metal disc of a mason jar. For some reason most stores carry coarser mesh, so that the bees fall out, and finer, so that the mites do not.
2016 July 06 at 12:46
Great summary, thanks for the post. I’ve found the #8 screen at some Ace Hardware stores. As you say most places don’t seem to carry it.
2016 July 07 at 10:01
Perhaps as more people take up beekeeping it will become less rare? Ah, probably not.
2016 July 06 at 17:02
Wow!
2016 July 07 at 10:01
Indeed, there is no end to the indignities we inflict on our poor, hard-working bees.
2016 July 06 at 20:21
We’re your counts high or low?
2016 July 07 at 10:14
Listed in the previous post, our worst reading was one mite per hundred bees, below our threshold of three, so no treatment yet.
2016 July 07 at 10:35
Really interested in this, as I have so often seen this type of treatment disparaged….
2016 July 07 at 11:09
What we have described is not a treatment but a diagnostic. The colony has about as many mites after as it had before but we have a useful estimate of that number to inform a decision to treat or not.
There are beeks who dust all the bees, not just a sample, to force a mite drop and, as you say, this treament is generally disparaged as ineffective unless applied with annoying frequency.
Randy Oliver gives a more nuanced report:
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/powdered-sugar-dusting-sweet-and-safe-but-does-it-really-work-part-1/
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/powdered-sugar-dusting-sweet-and-safe-but-does-it-really-work-part-2/
2016 July 07 at 11:36
Thanks!