Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Count the mites immediately if using vegetable oil or petroleum jelly, or cover with clear
plastic food wrap if using a commercial sticky medium.
After three days, remove the sticky board and immediately cover with clear plastic
food wrap. Pull it tight and smooth it down so there are no air bubbles or wrinkles. This
keeps the board from accumulating additional material and it allows you to stack them
for storage and still be able to count them later.
As soon as you can, count the mites that are stuck on the board. Next, take that total
and divide by three. This number represents the average number of mites that fell each
day. If you find hundreds you have a serious problem. If you find none you have a great
colony. Most likely, the number will be in between, and if you've been reading this
book, that number will be much closer to 0 than to 100.
The reverse side of a screened bottom board: Debris and mites fall from the colony above,
through the screen, and are caught on the sticky board. When the three days have
passed, remove the board.
There are hundreds of oval, rust-colored mites on this board. The rest of the debris is wax
and other regular colony junk.
Now look at the chart (on the next page) that gives the guidelines of how many mites
you find relative to the size of the colony and the time of year. Those numbers are con-
servative, but when the daily mite count reaches those levels you are going to have to
take a more aggressive stand on mite control. Study it carefully. If you are serious about
your IPM program and have been monitoring the mite levels in your colonies, you will
know long before the counts get to these levels that you need additional mite prevention
or removal techniques in your world. There are just too many ways to beat this foe.
