Timely video even though you made it 4 years ago. Getting mite washes of 1 mite each for the last 2 months. Still I am going to treat this weekend with HopGuard3. Even though things look good like you said, can't take a chance to get them through winter without a treatment. No one is mite free. Great advice. Thank you!
I test for mites every now and then. I generally treat without testing or doing a mite count. In my years of bee keeping I generally count between 1-10 mites per 100 bees. Since mites always seem to be present, I believe it is quite fine to treat w/o counting or checking for an exact count. When it comes to making new queens I select from strong colonies and those that survived the MN winter.
I apply one Oxalic Acid treatment per week for six consecutive weeks (two Brood cycles) that will suppose to give me a 97% kill rate that Randy Oliver has found in his experiments (ABJ Feb 2018), doing a total of five Oxalic Acid treatments every four days apart will give you a quick knockdown of your mite load with a 91% kill rate that Randy Oliver has found in his experiments (ABJ Feb 2018), but Randy found that the mites will rebound after the treatment which drops the treatments efficacy. Dr Sammy Ramsey advises that you should treat in July through August to knock down the majority of Varroa mite load in the hive and then treat again for Varroa in mid September thru October to kill the Varroa that were missed on the first round of treatments. I also use a pro vamp 110 vaporizer. Jason, I am posting this information for the benefit of all the Beekeepers on your RUclips channel, and I appreciate all the work you do in making the bee videos.
@Charles Thomas Thank you very much for sharing with all my followers and me. I am curious do you use a invertor, generator or are your hives close to an outlet you can just plug in your ProVap? I am using a small generator.
2nd year beekeeper here...I did OA vapor every weekend in August. Is there anything wrong with continuing every weekend in September also? I'm in the Pacific Northwest
@@JCsBees I am using a inverter hooked up to my pickup battery, but I find that it make the Pro Vap slow to heat back up after a treatment compared to when it is plug in a electrical outlet. Been thinking seriously the last couple of days about buying a Honda 2200 inverter generator to power it. Do you find that using a generator is faster? I use two grams of Oxalic Acid in a treatment and it takes about one minute 20 seconds for it to complete the treatment when I see the digital number display going up in temperature. Some of my friends have wrap the heat bowl with muffler insulation to keep it hotter, but that affects the cooking of the Oxalic Acid turning it into a gas that might hurt the bees I have read in the past before the Pro Vap came out. I am treating 30 five frame Nucs and 8 ten frame honey production hives, basically doing the same thing you are doing selling Honey, Nucs, and this year raising my on queens .
The generator works but it cumbersome to carry around. I have recently resorted to pulling it around in my little atv wagon, that works but still not super easy. Seems like it takes forever to just get prepared to treat by the time you gather everything and load it on the wagon. lol I wonder does having your truck running change anything with the performance of the provap? Does it heat quicker than the truck not running? Sounds like your doing well with your bees. Nice job!
Jason Chrisman running the truck will raise the input voltage to the inverter but not the output voltage(120V). If you have a 12V device the 14.5V of the running vehicle would probably make heat quicker.
Hi JC I enjoy listening to your videos they are very accurate descriptions. Talking about varroa mites I have invented a varroa defender which treats the bees every time they go in or out from the hive yes I said bees , it works like dog flea treatment and coats the bees back and infects the varroa mites which fall off the bee thorax it also protects the bees thorax when visiting flowers stopping the mites etc from attaching themselves back on the part of the bee it can't. Reach ie its back , I will send you a video and show you how it works etc if your interested. Regards Paul Hewitt UK bee keeper.
I'm guilty! Last year I did not test for mites, I only treated them. Very excited to see the results of the sumac berries! I have used them in the past to dye foothold traps, so if this works maybe I won't grumble so much about the amount of them I have on my property! Thanks for sharing J.C!
Great info Jason, I'm 2 weeks into my Mite treatments with your bees they're doing great oh, it's a 4 box Colony now, it's nice to walk the property these days and see honey bees almost any flower, have a side box a hundred feet from The Hive with sugar water and Ultra B while I'm doing the Mite treatment then I'll go back to into box feeding for winter bees, and start squeezing of bees back into a 2 Box brood chamber so they can backfill, here's has high hopes for the spring looking forward.
I treated but didn’t do a mite wash first. I am a first year keeper and horrible at spotting the queen. Knowing my luck she would be in the wash. I don’t get any lecturing impressions from you. I get a man speaking from experience and sharing his knowledge.
I dont mean to be so off topic but does someone know a method to log back into an Instagram account?? I stupidly forgot the password. I appreciate any help you can offer me
@Johnathan Jedidiah thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site on google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now. I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
Great video and great points. I have recently been thinking about preemptively treating without counting mites but i think I’m gonna continue counting mites for the economic benefits of treating less. I run russian bees which can have good hygienic behavior so I definitely monitor for that. I think its ok for beekeepers to treat without counting so long as they are not breeding, that’s definitely better than not treating at all. Dr Sam Ramsey said it best, “you don’t wait until you see fleas on your dog to treat it for fleas”.
Jason hi im lee I got 2 packages from ga. May 5 2020 oxalic acid treeted asap 2 days oct 05 2020 acid wash and rinsed with water 2 times no mites found will check apr 2021 To see whats up
Thanks for great video as usual! OK. Here is an additional method, or a variant of the oxalic treatment. I make a acid solution (oxalic acid/water/sugar) in ratio 7,5:100:100 grams and drip between the frames directly on the bees. About 25 ml per row. This is done when temperature is between 0-5 degrees C or 32-40? F and when there are no brood left in the hive. The effect is very good and it is harmless to the bees.
@@JCsBees Dibble? OK thanks! Works perfectly. Vapor is no options for me because I need to carry all my stuff quite a distance from my truck to the hives...
Jason, You said one cup holds about 300 bees. I've been taught and told by many beekeepers it's one half cup holds about 300 bees. Thanks for the Sumac experiment. I'll wait for the results
Yes. I made a slip up, it is in deed 1/2 a cup. My bad! If your read some of the other comments you'll see this has been pointed out many times now. lol
Just did my mite counts today. Early in the summer I used Apivar on my new packages to knock down the mites that arrived. In July I checked the counts and they didn't change. I have 1-3 mites per 100. Then I used Apiguard in late July and August. I checked my counts today and they're higher than July. I can't get a product to work anymore. I'm planning on buying a vaporizer and do an oxalic acid treatment regiment for 24 days while treating every four to five days. Suggestions?
Thanks, Jason. I was a "treatment free" believer. 4 years. Stubborn. You can guess what my outcome was. I treated yesterday with formic pro. I'm experiencing normal losses on the ground, and I was prepared to see it. I know my girls have a better chance at over wintering. VERY interested to see your findings with the sumac. I have TONS. Please include the toxicity to human factor, differences- as poison sumac is not a great idea to burn.
@Karianngardenguru I wouldn't call it stubborn, your just avoiding the use of chemicals around your bees and that is a great thing. But in the case of mites and winter your wayyyy better to treat with an approved method than to not. It's not worth losing your investment. I hope to include as much information on the sumac as possible but check the toxicity is one thing I don't have the know how on. I am hoping someone with the right equipment will assist in this part. Time will tell. I should have mentioned I am using Staghorn Sumac and not the poisonous stuff.
I'm sold on the provap and mite counts but if I've got a week colony I'm not killing 300 bees I'm just treating. One question I have on the provap is how hot does that end get? I'm worried it may melt the plastic on my apimaye hives.
Hello Jason. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and videos. After 2 years of non treatments and disastrous results we have finally educated ourselves somewhat on the treatment of mites. We still haven't been able to do a mite count. Not for lack of trying but because we can never se to find the queen. Last thing we want is to have her end up in our wash jar😩😩. Lack of experience I'm sure has a lot to do with it but the fear is always there. Not sure if there's any advice you can give but doing a "simple" mite count is not that simple for newer bee keepers. Any words would be appreciate. Thank you again
Have you considered having your next queens marked so they are easier to see? If you know the queen is on a frame then you could easily place that frame in another box with you do mite counts. Best of luck.
@@JCsBees after watching your video, I did a little reading on the subject and you are correct. It may very well cause a bad odor in the hive and cause the bees to start a grooming frenzy, which in turn just causes the live mites to loosen from the bees and fall. Nobody seems to find it actually kills mites. This should be interesting. I'm eager to see what happens.
By the time I needed to think about mites I had gathered many swarms and did removals plus was caring for a lazy beeks bees. Had around 25 colonies to work with so I dug in and did mite-counts. All colonies were first-year from packages, swarms, and removals. 25/25 were at or above the treatment threshold. Right away I decided to treat everything and quit counting. All honeybees in North America have varroa mites.
First I tried the oxyvap. It works but treating dozens of colonies with it takes too long. Bought a provap110 from Betterbee and am thrilled with it. The one thing I have trouble with it the nozzle clogging. Carry a short piece of bailing wire to unclog or it will pop the cap off. Provap110 is the way to go if you've got more that 10 or 15 colonies.
I am working today to fine tune my homemade provap. The goal temp is 446F, the issues is after heating element kicks off at 446 the cook pot still reaches up to 476 or so before starting to drop. There is so many different thing to adjust so it's kind of a pain in the butt to get it right where I want. I have also noticed the clogging and like you am using a piece of wire after each use to clean out tubing.
@@JCsBees mine is set to 230. Have to assume thats Celsius. If you want to see the directions sheet for dosing instructions I could share that. Once I had a provap110 in my hand I was kicking myself because to make one is simple. The controls will be a bit jumpy but if you're patient the controller "learns" what it's doing.
@@JCsBees the temp jumps around a little on a ProVap110 too. Used mine yesterday and saw temps as high as 254 °C. Recommended treatment is between 5-7 days, not 7-10.
@@JCsBees When I kept 50 beehives in the early 1980s, honey sold for only $.85 per pound. Now beekeepers can get upto $10 per pound. What Varroa has to do with this I leave to your own judgement.
If you buy apigard in the bucket it cost 100$ for the bucket of apigard. It will treat 60 hives that's under 2$ a hive to treat. The only downside to apigard is that you cant get into your hive for 2 weeks but it gives you a break after a long summer of beekeeping lol. Applying the treatment it self is simple. Thanks for the video
@Cornbread & Bees Great info! I am sure that will be helpful to some people. You sound like me as far as enjoying the break. I look forward to winter so I can concentrate on other tasks. lol
@chris With oxalic acid you have to remember that it does NOT kill mites in capped cells. That said, I would suggest a treatment every 4 days for a month. If they were broodless then 3 treatment would be plenty.
I thought the recommended treatment interval for oxalic acid fogging is every 3-4 days for 21 days. This is because the gestation period for mites inside capped brood is 3.5 days. When you fog once, you kill the mites that are outside the capped brood, but the fog can’t enter capped brood, so the mites inside are protected. So then you have to fog again 3-4 days later to kill the newly emerged mites.
alphaxanon Hello Alpha. From everything I have heard in regards to the treatment cycle, it would be every 7 days for a total of three treatments (21 days). The reasoning behind the 7 days is maintaining a good Queen pheromone within the hive. I have never tested this on one of my hives but have really never needed to either.
Hey Jason I recently did a Mite Treatment with Mite Away Quick Strips, when I did the treatment I had 6-8 frames of Brood, after the first night, there ere a lot of dead bees at the entrance. At the ends of the treatment I removed the strips and did a quick inspection to discover that all the brood was gone and most was replaced with nectar as we are in a heavy golden rod flow. There has been more larvae in the hive, but also have a queen cup forming.
@Bryan Kelley Glad to hear your treating. I would say the dead bees and missing brood is due to mites. The dead bees would have already been weak from mite diseases and the brood contain mites so it was removed. I know it sucks to have lost all the brood but know going forward your bees are healthier. The queen cup is a concern though, Did you see the queen? Was she laying? Sometime MAQS will kill weak queens. If you don't see her I would look for a mated replacement ASAP. You don't have time to wait for a queen to be reared and mated. Good luck!
@@JCsBees I have not yet mastered finding the queen, I opened the hive the other day and did see some larvae and brood, hoping she is still there, but it is also a concern of mine with the queen cup forming, I only have two choices, get a mated queen or wait and see if the queen cup is closed in.
Good news inspected hive again, the queen cup is gone and saw more larvae and brood. Actually saw two bees springing forth, which was a first for me. Hopefully she does some have laying the next week or two.
Spinach, Swiss Chard and Rhubarb to mention a few of the plants we consume but not the Rhubarb leaves just the stalks. I have heard that some beekeepers will gather the Rhubarb leaves, dry them and then use them in the smoker as mild treatment. Just FYI I learned that the mites jumped from the Asian honeybee and that is why we have them along with the SHB coming from Africa.
@Thomas Kmet I could think of any of the foods we eat at the time but knew there was some. Thanks for sharing them. You are right about how we got mite here in the US , not sure about the beetles though.
I do believe that the oxalic acid content in the rhubarb leaves/stems are far too low to have any effect on the mites. Worth trying for sure but I think better stick the more tested, validated treatments.
1/2 cup of bees, or 1/3, corresponds to 300 and 200. A bit easier with the right tool. Also, using the Veto-Pharma Varroa EasyCheck, which I own, the mites migrate back up into the basket as you swirl, I have no confidence in it if the mites don't remain in the bottom. At the bottom of Randy Oliver not quite perfect alcohol wash, Steve Gomez's modification gives a tool in which the mites which come down, stay down. I made it, I used it and recommend it. Just for grins, you might want to count a few of your samples to get a handle on the number you're scooping, it could be surprising.
Good information, thanks! I do things slightly different than most when washing off mites. First I do the first wash which kills the bees and mites. I then remove the mites I see and drain alcohol. Then refill with water and shake again. I do this a couple times and I fell it makes a huge difference.
My bees have mites. I treat. I also throw a short frame in the brood box they build drone comb on the bottom and I cut that comb off and check the drone larvae. My version of a mite wash.
Interesting mite count approach! I have looked into this and there doesn't seem to be any studies done that specify a set number of mites per drone brood to know rather you should treat or not. That said, what number do you go by? With a mite wash, I usually treat anything over 4 mites per 100 bees.
Hey Jason I have a question that I’ve never heard asked before. How far apart do you recommend keeping your hives on a stand , what’s to close? And do you think that would have any effect on mite transfer colony to colony? Thanks in advance
@Mikey D Not sure this would make much difference on mite load. I've seen hives touching with one having a low count and the other high. In the winter having them touching is ideal as they can share each others heat, in the summer air flow is good but touching won't harm anything.
I do my mite wash and mite treatment all at the same time. I fix a couple gallons of soapy water in a pan and manually scrub all my bees with a little sponge in the end of a match stick. When I get all the bees washed thoroughly, I strain the bath water and count the mites. I do that a couple times a week on 500 hives and I have been mite free for over a week.
@Brent Pot has to be legal for recreational use where you live to come up with the replies I get from you. I can't lie though I always look forward to see what you got to say. 😂🙂😂😉
@@JCsBees Lol, never touch the stuff, I don't even drink but I think MO did make pot legal in the last election. Creativity is the spice of life brother, lol.
Say you treat and count the drop on a sticky board post treatment. This would also give you an indication of your bees mite resistance correct? What kind of number would you be looking for post treatment? I know this will be a lot of counting but it should be very accurate I would believe.
To be honest, I don't know about sticky board counts, never done one. I prefer mite washes. I am sure somewhere on Google you can find the answer though. Sorry!
Treating without a count would be vastly better than NOT treating without a count. But doing a PROPER count (high %abv alcohol wash) does let you not-treat if the count is low enough and that's a good thing. In time, varroa WILL become resistant to things like oxalic acid and constantly treating them without the need is a major factor in increasing this. In addition, such treatments ruin the sperm-count of drones, and there are lingering effects in the comb itself too. There is currently a problem with poor-quality queens, and the issue is mostly with the lack of good drones.
Awesome! But so you know these are not the poisonous sumacs, you can actually make kool-aid with these berries. I haven't done it but the neighbor does all the time.
Not "poison sumac", "ornamental sumac". Poison Sumac: rounded (lobular) leaves with smooth edges and odd number of leaves per stem, white berries, prefers damp swampy shady habitat. Safe Sumac: long narrow pointed leaves with serrated edges and even number of leaves per stem, red fuzzy berries (a culinary spice and craft dye) in cone (Christmas tree) clusters, prefers dry well drained full sun habitat. Poison Sumac is very bad stuff. It produces more "urushiol" than "poison ivy". Ol' Jason wouldn't be handling poison sumac like that. If he's not allergic it's a good bet a member of his family is.
I get such a bad reaction from sumac...like poison ivy. I worry about smoking myself. Still, I would love to see your video. I have also heard that rhubarb leaves give off OA if you lay them across the top of the frames and let the bees chew them.
This isn't poison sumac, it's staghorn sumac. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhus_typhina I don't know the relationship to why sumac may work. Maybe it does contain OA, maybe it's something else, maybe it's a bunch of BS. Time will tell I guess. lol
To the best of my knowledge bees are capped after about 6 days, so you have to treat every 5 days. If you left it 7 to 10 like you say there is a very big chance that mites can come out of a cell as adults and enter the next one thats about to be capped between treetments. Apparently the mites do not enter the cell till the last moments before being capped as the bees will detect them(some bee strains)and kill the larvae and empty the cell to get at them. Maybe worth a video to do a comparison, every 5 days or every 7 - 10. Also i am part way through my provap build, your video was a great help.
What you say about treating every 5 days sounds right. Last fall was my first and only attempt up till now to use OAV and I couldn't remember the exact days. Guess I should have researched that a little more before speaking about it. I was almost positive it was 7-10 days though. lol I'm been working to fine tune my provap settings. I think my k type thermocouple is bad so I ordered another. Hope that fixes it. Good luck with your build!
I look at drone brood if I can. Very easy to tell if you have lots of mites. Pull out a few dozen larva. Sometimes you will see 5 or more mites a larva.
That's a great way to see how bad the mite population is but....There is not research saying "X" number of mites per drone larva means your population is high and you should treat. What number means you need to treat? With the wash I treat anything with over 4 mites per 100.
@@JCsBees Yeah going to treat for sure asap. I googled and tried to find something but couldnt find any thresholds. Would be nice if someone did some research on this.
Yeah some people swear by these berries and killing mites. On the down side it's not an approved method but I guess if it works why not. lol If it does work, I'd guess it's not approved because it's free.
Off topic question. New beekeeper here. My bees re queened themselves about a month ago and the population isn’t that great yet but this queen is laying up a storm. They are now making cells again and filling them with jelly. Someone told me checking them weekly will make them swarm. Is that correct?
Checking too much can disturb them but I understand why you are. Could you maybe extend the period between inspection to every 10 days? If they are making cells again I would guess they are thinking about swarming. Maybe there is something about the hive they don't like, not sure. Ever heard of absconding? That's usually the result of bees being bothered too much but in this cases they just leave and don't leave queen cells. Also all the bees leave. Best of luck!
Jason Chrisman I am afraid it’s too late in the year in Ohio for bees to swarm and survive. Am I correct? If I knock the cells down they will probably just make more.
Very important information, Jason. Bees are a part of the Agriculture spectrum, and if our livestock get attacked by viruses and the like that threatens their health, we treat them or have them treated. Same with our(God's) honey bees. We need to treat when they need our help. Thanks.
VERY , VERY Well Said Jason, you said Everything Exactly as it should be said.My father n law perfect example ,"I don't see any mites" well , you probably won't,if u do they are infested... can't wait for Sumac Video!
@@JCsBees yeah,bout like the TF bs.How come mine get pms if I do nothing? We have a well-known Dr. (Foreigner) down the road that catches Feral swarms an supposedly don't treat or ever feed sugar but I catch the same bees and if they can't abscond from mites they die lol
That works but the beekeepers learns nothing about their stock by just treating. To learn how yours bees genetic works against varroa you should do a wash every few weeks. Beside 300 bees is nothing when 1200 are born daily, right? Good luck this winter!!
I bought 4 nucs from a guy that has over 300 colonies. I asked what his last might count was, he said he didn't know. Then he said he just treats at the end of the year when his colonies are broodless and followed that with "I don't have a mite problem, I get them from my neighbors"..... coincidentally every nuc I got from him is struggling and one needed a new queen right away. I guess if you sell junk bees this year you'll get to sell junk bees next year too 😂
@Thomas Stone It's sad the bees I see being sold. You would think selling junk bees would catch up with the dealer but it doesn't seem to. This is mainly due to new beekeepers not knowing. I sure hope you can get your bees in the right direction soon. Best of luck!
That would be a good experiment but I am not sure I will have time with everything else I have going right now. Maybe in the future I will try this and share the information.
Well I no we have to do mite wash but I don’t think there as accurate as they say I do mite wash don’t see mites do anouther one and I see 3 mites and so it’s not accurate I like to do mite wash but I still treat because I can’t trust mite wash
@Carl Nickell Not without a trained eye. Watch the video I linked called "I Did Not Treat My Bees, I Didn't See Any Mites". In this video, I show how small mites are.
Sometimes you can see one on the thorax or top of abdomen. The mites prefer the underside of abdomen however so if you are seeing them, there are prob hundreds you dont see...
Many people, particularly first year beekeepers, would have trouble killing bees. Even if it was justified for the colony’s survival. Being a first year bee keeper myself, I don’t understand why you can’t treat your bees with OAV without doing an alcohol wash and collect the dead mites as the result of the treatment with a sticky bottom board insert tray when they fall through the screened bottom board. Doesn’t this give you the same or better information that you will need to make future decisions? Statistically you are sampling all the bees in your colony and not a much smaller subset which may or may not represent all the bees in the hive. I may be missing something but I don’t think this has been considered.
What you suggest makes since but I don't know why it's not done that way. Maybe it's not an effective way to get a good count, not sure. Maybe next season I can do some testing on this. Running out of time this year.
I think the idea behind doing a wash is to get a somewhat controlled sample of how many mites per bee you have. If you were to count just the mites it doesn't give you a ratio of mites to bees as you don't know accurately how many bees are in a hive. In other words how many bees are actively carrying mites. As has been said you are always going to have some mites in the hive. Mite management is just a balancing act of treating to keep levels low without harming the bees in the process.
Timely video even though you made it 4 years ago. Getting mite washes of 1 mite each for the last 2 months. Still I am going to treat this weekend with HopGuard3. Even though things look good like you said, can't take a chance to get them through winter without a treatment. No one is mite free. Great advice. Thank you!
I test for mites every now and then. I generally treat without testing or doing a mite count. In my years of bee keeping I generally count between 1-10 mites per 100 bees. Since mites always seem to be present, I believe it is quite fine to treat w/o counting or checking for an exact count. When it comes to making new queens I select from strong colonies and those that survived the MN winter.
I apply one Oxalic Acid treatment per week for six consecutive weeks (two Brood cycles) that will suppose to give me a 97% kill rate that Randy Oliver has found in his experiments (ABJ Feb 2018), doing a total of five Oxalic Acid treatments every four days apart will give you a quick knockdown of your mite load with a 91% kill rate that Randy Oliver has found in his experiments (ABJ Feb 2018), but Randy found that the mites will rebound after the treatment which drops the treatments efficacy. Dr Sammy Ramsey advises that you should treat in July through August to knock down the majority of Varroa mite load in the hive and then treat again for Varroa in mid September thru October to kill the Varroa that were missed on the first round of treatments. I also use a pro vamp 110 vaporizer. Jason, I am posting this information for the benefit of all the Beekeepers on your RUclips channel, and I appreciate all the work you do in making the bee videos.
@Charles Thomas Thank you very much for sharing with all my followers and me.
I am curious do you use a invertor, generator or are your hives close to an outlet you can just plug in your ProVap? I am using a small generator.
2nd year beekeeper here...I did OA vapor every weekend in August. Is there anything wrong with continuing every weekend in September also? I'm in the Pacific Northwest
@@JCsBees I am using a inverter hooked up to my pickup battery, but I find that it make the Pro Vap slow to heat back up after a treatment compared to when it is plug in a electrical outlet. Been thinking seriously the last couple of days about buying a Honda 2200 inverter generator to power it. Do you find that using a generator is faster? I use two grams of Oxalic Acid in a treatment and it takes about one minute 20 seconds for it to complete the treatment when I see the digital number display going up in temperature. Some of my friends have wrap the heat bowl with muffler insulation to keep it hotter, but that affects the cooking of the Oxalic Acid turning it into a gas that might hurt the bees I have read in the past before the Pro Vap came out. I am treating 30 five frame Nucs and 8 ten frame honey production hives, basically doing the same thing you are doing selling Honey, Nucs, and this year raising my on queens .
The generator works but it cumbersome to carry around. I have recently resorted to pulling it around in my little atv wagon, that works but still not super easy. Seems like it takes forever to just get prepared to treat by the time you gather everything and load it on the wagon. lol
I wonder does having your truck running change anything with the performance of the provap? Does it heat quicker than the truck not running?
Sounds like your doing well with your bees. Nice job!
Jason Chrisman running the truck will raise the input voltage to the inverter but not the output voltage(120V).
If you have a 12V device the 14.5V of the running vehicle would probably make heat quicker.
Hi JC I enjoy listening to your videos they are very accurate descriptions. Talking about varroa mites I have invented a varroa defender which treats the bees every time they go in or out from the hive yes I said bees , it works like dog flea treatment and coats the bees back and infects the varroa mites which fall off the bee thorax it also protects the bees thorax when visiting flowers stopping the mites etc from attaching themselves back on the part of the bee it can't. Reach ie its back , I will send you a video and show you how it works etc if your interested. Regards Paul Hewitt UK bee keeper.
I'm guilty! Last year I did not test for mites, I only treated them. Very excited to see the results of the sumac berries! I have used them in the past to dye foothold traps, so if this works maybe I won't grumble so much about the amount of them I have on my property!
Thanks for sharing J.C!
looking forward to the berries video. i use maqs and oxalic acid through a fogger at present
Great information, I,m a beginner and trying my Best to do it Right. Thanks
Great info Jason, I'm 2 weeks into my Mite treatments with your bees they're doing great oh, it's a 4 box Colony now, it's nice to walk the property these days and see honey bees almost any flower, have a side box a hundred feet from The Hive with sugar water and Ultra B while I'm doing the Mite treatment then I'll go back to into box feeding for winter bees, and start squeezing of bees back into a 2 Box brood chamber so they can backfill, here's has high hopes for the spring looking forward.
@barry-bee-homesteading ! Glad to hear they are doing well. I have been trying to keep up with your videos on them.
I treated but didn’t do a mite wash first. I am a first year keeper and horrible at spotting the queen. Knowing my luck she would be in the wash. I don’t get any lecturing impressions from you. I get a man speaking from experience and sharing his knowledge.
I dont mean to be so off topic but does someone know a method to log back into an Instagram account??
I stupidly forgot the password. I appreciate any help you can offer me
@Sean Gerardo instablaster ;)
@Johnathan Jedidiah thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site on google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now.
I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
@Johnathan Jedidiah it worked and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy:D
Thank you so much you saved my account!
@Sean Gerardo no problem =)
Great video and great points. I have recently been thinking about preemptively treating without counting mites but i think I’m gonna continue counting mites for the economic benefits of treating less. I run russian bees which can have good hygienic behavior so I definitely monitor for that. I think its ok for beekeepers to treat without counting so long as they are not breeding, that’s definitely better than not treating at all. Dr Sam Ramsey said it best, “you don’t wait until you see fleas on your dog to treat it for fleas”.
I like the comparison to fleas on your dog. Good luck with the Russians.
Looking forward too the sumac smoker results.
I am super interested in the sumac berry treatment - please do a video on how you do it and any followup results - your videos are awesome!
Me too!
New beekeeper and I appreciate your sharing you knowledge and experience.
Jason hi im lee
I got 2 packages from ga. May 5 2020 oxalic acid treeted asap 2 days oct 05 2020 acid wash and rinsed with water 2 times no mites found will check apr 2021
To see whats up
Thanks for great video as usual! OK. Here is an additional method, or a variant of the oxalic treatment. I make a acid solution (oxalic acid/water/sugar) in ratio 7,5:100:100 grams and drip between the frames directly on the bees. About 25 ml per row. This is done when temperature is between 0-5 degrees C or 32-40? F and when there are no brood left in the hive. The effect is very good and it is harmless to the bees.
Sounds like the Dibble Method. I have a video on it ruclips.net/video/Y9lTCCtTeus/видео.html
@@JCsBees Dibble? OK thanks! Works perfectly. Vapor is no options for me because I need to carry all my stuff quite a distance from my truck to the hives...
Sorry meant dribble method not dibble.
Great video JC. I'm curious to see how the sumac berries work. To smoke them would to me , be the simplist way.
Jason, You said one cup holds about 300 bees. I've been taught and told by many beekeepers it's one half cup holds about 300 bees.
Thanks for the Sumac experiment. I'll wait for the results
Yes. I made a slip up, it is in deed 1/2 a cup. My bad!
If your read some of the other comments you'll see this has been pointed out many times now. lol
@@JCsBees I usually read the first couple comments and then post my own. I do enjoy your channel. Excellent presentations.
Just did my mite counts today. Early in the summer I used Apivar on my new packages to knock down the mites that arrived. In July I checked the counts and they didn't change. I have 1-3 mites per 100. Then I used Apiguard in late July and August. I checked my counts today and they're higher than July. I can't get a product to work anymore. I'm planning on buying a vaporizer and do an oxalic acid treatment regiment for 24 days while treating every four to five days.
Suggestions?
Hi Jason. Would it be helpful to vape early or late in the day to ketch the flying bees in the hive. Thanks
Great question! I seem to notice early in the morning works best for me but either option is better than mid day.
I visually saw mites and hit them hard with a full dose of mite away. Boom, done.
Just tried sumac smoke. Not sure how it did on the mites yet but it sure makes some great smoke!!
Thanks, Jason. I was a "treatment free" believer. 4 years. Stubborn. You can guess what my outcome was. I treated yesterday with formic pro. I'm experiencing normal losses on the ground, and I was prepared to see it. I know my girls have a better chance at over wintering. VERY interested to see your findings with the sumac. I have TONS. Please include the toxicity to human factor, differences- as poison sumac is not a great idea to burn.
@Karianngardenguru I wouldn't call it stubborn, your just avoiding the use of chemicals around your bees and that is a great thing. But in the case of mites and winter your wayyyy better to treat with an approved method than to not. It's not worth losing your investment.
I hope to include as much information on the sumac as possible but check the toxicity is one thing I don't have the know how on. I am hoping someone with the right equipment will assist in this part. Time will tell. I should have mentioned I am using Staghorn Sumac and not the poisonous stuff.
I'm sold on the provap and mite counts but if I've got a week colony I'm not killing 300 bees I'm just treating. One question I have on the provap is how hot does that end get? I'm worried it may melt the plastic on my apimaye hives.
I never once gave that a thought but your right. It gets to 450F degrees. It may melt it.
I happen to agree. If you want to keep the mites away treat without a mite wash. Hives have mites period.
Thank you again Jason for this important information.
Hello Jason. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and videos. After 2 years of non treatments and disastrous results we have finally educated ourselves somewhat on the treatment of mites. We still haven't been able to do a mite count. Not for lack of trying but because we can never se to find the queen. Last thing we want is to have her end up in our wash jar😩😩. Lack of experience I'm sure has a lot to do with it but the fear is always there. Not sure if there's any advice you can give but doing a "simple" mite count is not that simple for newer bee keepers. Any words would be appreciate. Thank you again
Have you considered having your next queens marked so they are easier to see? If you know the queen is on a frame then you could easily place that frame in another box with you do mite counts. Best of luck.
Hi Jason would love to see the result of the sumac berries.
Thank you for the great information! I'm looking forward to the sumac videos, it sounds encouraging.
Should be a fun experiment. I just hope they don't stink. lol
@@JCsBees after watching your video, I did a little reading on the subject and you are correct. It may very well cause a bad odor in the hive and cause the bees to start a grooming frenzy, which in turn just causes the live mites to loosen from the bees and fall. Nobody seems to find it actually kills mites. This should be interesting. I'm eager to see what happens.
Great look forward to your trial thanks, Jason.
Great info thanks for sharing keep us informed on the berries I’ve heard that too
By the time I needed to think about mites I had gathered many swarms and did removals plus was caring for a lazy beeks bees.
Had around 25 colonies to work with so I dug in and did mite-counts. All colonies were first-year from packages, swarms, and removals. 25/25 were at or above the treatment threshold. Right away I decided to treat everything and quit counting. All honeybees in North America have varroa mites.
First I tried the oxyvap. It works but treating dozens of colonies with it takes too long. Bought a provap110 from Betterbee and am thrilled with it. The one thing I have trouble with it the nozzle clogging. Carry a short piece of bailing wire to unclog or it will pop the cap off. Provap110 is the way to go if you've got more that 10 or 15 colonies.
I am working today to fine tune my homemade provap. The goal temp is 446F, the issues is after heating element kicks off at 446 the cook pot still reaches up to 476 or so before starting to drop. There is so many different thing to adjust so it's kind of a pain in the butt to get it right where I want.
I have also noticed the clogging and like you am using a piece of wire after each use to clean out tubing.
@@JCsBees mine is set to 230. Have to assume thats Celsius. If you want to see the directions sheet for dosing instructions I could share that.
Once I had a provap110 in my hand I was kicking myself because to make one is simple. The controls will be a bit jumpy but if you're patient the controller "learns" what it's doing.
@@JCsBees the temp jumps around a little on a ProVap110 too. Used mine yesterday and saw temps as high as 254 °C. Recommended treatment is between 5-7 days, not 7-10.
Excellent video. Informative without a lot of wasted yapping. Good job sir.
For your subject matter, the calendar measures. Will you please date your content? Thank you
Sorry No Varroa in Australia as yet , be interested to watch the video on the seeds with the smoker .
Don't be sorry, be glad. Varroa are a pain in the butt to deal with.
@@JCsBees
When I kept 50 beehives in the early 1980s, honey sold for only $.85 per pound. Now beekeepers can get upto $10 per pound. What Varroa has to do with this I leave to your own judgement.
Is this treatment best done in evening or during the day? How many bees are there in each seam ?
Jason, I didn’t catch the name of the plant that you are going to experiment with in your smoker, can you please reply to me with the plant name.
Sumac.
Thanks for the tips. I am interested in the berry smoking of the bees
Great video man. Looking forward to the next experiment!
If you buy apigard in the bucket it cost 100$ for the bucket of apigard. It will treat 60 hives that's under 2$ a hive to treat. The only downside to apigard is that you cant get into your hive for 2 weeks but it gives you a break after a long summer of beekeeping lol. Applying the treatment it self is simple. Thanks for the video
@Cornbread & Bees Great info! I am sure that will be helpful to some people.
You sound like me as far as enjoying the break. I look forward to winter so I can concentrate on other tasks. lol
@@JCsBees yes a break and other tasks. As you know living on a farm bees,cows,etc. There's always something that needs to be done lol
Another downfall of Aprigaurd it is a 6 week treatment.
Interested in results of sumac berries for smoking varroa destructor
Cant wait to see your test. Thanks man
So, is 3 OA treatments 7 days apart in the fall and in the spring is sufficient?
@chris With oxalic acid you have to remember that it does NOT kill mites in capped cells. That said, I would suggest a treatment every 4 days for a month. If they were broodless then 3 treatment would be plenty.
I thought the recommended treatment interval for oxalic acid fogging is every 3-4 days for 21 days.
This is because the gestation period for mites inside capped brood is 3.5 days.
When you fog once, you kill the mites that are outside the capped brood, but the fog can’t enter capped brood, so the mites inside are protected.
So then you have to fog again 3-4 days later to kill the newly emerged mites.
alphaxanon Hello Alpha. From everything I have heard in regards to the treatment cycle, it would be every 7 days for a total of three treatments (21 days). The reasoning behind the 7 days is maintaining a good Queen pheromone within the hive. I have never tested this on one of my hives but have really never needed to either.
Hey Jason I recently did a Mite Treatment with Mite Away Quick Strips, when I did the treatment I had 6-8 frames of Brood, after the first night, there ere a lot of dead bees at the entrance. At the ends of the treatment I removed the strips and did a quick inspection to discover that all the brood was gone and most was replaced with nectar as we are in a heavy golden rod flow. There has been more larvae in the hive, but also have a queen cup forming.
@Bryan Kelley Glad to hear your treating. I would say the dead bees and missing brood is due to mites. The dead bees would have already been weak from mite diseases and the brood contain mites so it was removed. I know it sucks to have lost all the brood but know going forward your bees are healthier.
The queen cup is a concern though, Did you see the queen? Was she laying? Sometime MAQS will kill weak queens. If you don't see her I would look for a mated replacement ASAP. You don't have time to wait for a queen to be reared and mated. Good luck!
@@JCsBees I have not yet mastered finding the queen, I opened the hive the other day and did see some larvae and brood, hoping she is still there, but it is also a concern of mine with the queen cup forming, I only have two choices, get a mated queen or wait and see if the queen cup is closed in.
If you seen larva since the treatment you should be good.
Good news inspected hive again, the queen cup is gone and saw more larvae and brood. Actually saw two bees springing forth, which was a first for me. Hopefully she does some have laying the next week or two.
Spinach, Swiss Chard and Rhubarb to mention a few of the plants we consume but not the Rhubarb leaves just the stalks. I have heard that some beekeepers will gather the Rhubarb leaves, dry them and then use them in the smoker as mild treatment. Just FYI I learned that the mites jumped from the Asian honeybee and that is why we have them along with the SHB coming from Africa.
@Thomas Kmet I could think of any of the foods we eat at the time but knew there was some. Thanks for sharing them.
You are right about how we got mite here in the US , not sure about the beetles though.
I do believe that the oxalic acid content in the rhubarb leaves/stems are far too low to have any effect on the mites. Worth trying for sure but I think better stick the more tested, validated treatments.
@@Sweepy372 I agree but maybe an irritant for in between treatments and as the saying goes every little bit helps.
Is that poison sumac or sweet sumac. I'm in Oklahoma and only have sweet sumac. I would not be able to use poison sumac due to allergies.
It's Staghorn Sumac I will be testing.
Can I keep my mouse guard on while I treat for vorroa?
1/2 cup of bees, or 1/3, corresponds to 300 and 200. A bit easier with the right tool. Also, using the Veto-Pharma Varroa EasyCheck, which I own, the mites migrate back up into the basket as you swirl, I have no confidence in it if the mites don't remain in the bottom. At the bottom of Randy Oliver not quite perfect alcohol wash, Steve Gomez's modification gives a tool in which the mites which come down, stay down. I made it, I used it and recommend it. Just for grins, you might want to count a few of your samples to get a handle on the number you're scooping, it could be surprising.
Good information, thanks! I do things slightly different than most when washing off mites. First I do the first wash which kills the bees and mites. I then remove the mites I see and drain alcohol. Then refill with water and shake again. I do this a couple times and I fell it makes a huge difference.
My bees have mites. I treat. I also throw a short frame in the brood box they build drone comb on the bottom and I cut that comb off and check the drone larvae. My version of a mite wash.
Interesting mite count approach! I have looked into this and there doesn't seem to be any studies done that specify a set number of mites per drone brood to know rather you should treat or not. That said, what number do you go by? With a mite wash, I usually treat anything over 4 mites per 100 bees.
thank you for sharing this information... very interested in the sumac berry experiment!
I’ve also seen people do horseradish a dried up cut in to small thin pieces and used in the smoker or leaves and they have a big mite drop
Horse radish, curly dock (wild horse radish, even rhubarb all have oxalic acid in their leaves...
Great video...full of knowledge..
Very interested in the sumac treatment results.my uncle always liked to use them in the smoker they burn slow. Good video 👍.
Hey Jason I have a question that I’ve never heard asked before. How far apart do you recommend keeping your hives on a stand , what’s to close? And do you think that would have any effect on mite transfer colony to colony? Thanks in advance
@Mikey D Not sure this would make much difference on mite load. I've seen hives touching with one having a low count and the other high. In the winter having them touching is ideal as they can share each others heat, in the summer air flow is good but touching won't harm anything.
I do my mite wash and mite treatment all at the same time. I fix a couple gallons of soapy water in a pan and manually scrub all my bees with a little sponge in the end of a match stick. When I get all the bees washed thoroughly, I strain the bath water and count the mites. I do that a couple times a week on 500 hives and I have been mite free for over a week.
@Brent Pot has to be legal for recreational use where you live to come up with the replies I get from you. I can't lie though I always look forward to see what you got to say. 😂🙂😂😉
@@JCsBees Lol, never touch the stuff, I don't even drink but I think MO did make pot legal in the last election. Creativity is the spice of life brother, lol.
Say you treat and count the drop on a sticky board post treatment. This would also give you an indication of your bees mite resistance correct? What kind of number would you be looking for post treatment? I know this will be a lot of counting but it should be very accurate I would believe.
To be honest, I don't know about sticky board counts, never done one. I prefer mite washes. I am sure somewhere on Google you can find the answer though. Sorry!
Jason are you certain it’s one cup-I’ve always read its 1/2 cup for 300 bees
@Steve Jackson I was wrong to write a cup. If you read the other comments it's been pointed out many times. It is 1/2 cup! Sorry bud.
When are you going to try the sumac berries.We have a lot of sumac here both the red and green.Green mean go so dont stop at the green berries!!!
Gonna start this week but it will be a few weeks before I have enough information to share a video.
I did OA vapor each weekend of August.....is there anything wrong with continuing each weekend of September also?
@Dokken Erik Funny you ask as @Charles Thomas just left a great answer to this. Read his comment.
Thank you. Good
Treating without a count would be vastly better than NOT treating without a count.
But doing a PROPER count (high %abv alcohol wash) does let you not-treat if the count is low enough and that's a good thing. In time, varroa WILL become resistant to things like oxalic acid and constantly treating them without the need is a major factor in increasing this.
In addition, such treatments ruin the sperm-count of drones, and there are lingering effects in the comb itself too. There is currently a problem with poor-quality queens, and the issue is mostly with the lack of good drones.
should the sumac flowers be green or dried
Dried.
really informative video. waiting for my tool to do my 10 hives.
Thank you Jason I would really like to know more about that poison sumac treatment so I’ll be watching thank you again
Awesome! But so you know these are not the poisonous sumacs, you can actually make kool-aid with these berries. I haven't done it but the neighbor does all the time.
www.tasteofbeirut.com/sumac-lemonade/
Not "poison sumac", "ornamental sumac". Poison Sumac: rounded (lobular) leaves with smooth edges and odd number of leaves per stem, white berries, prefers damp swampy shady habitat. Safe Sumac: long narrow pointed leaves with serrated edges and even number of leaves per stem, red fuzzy berries (a culinary spice and craft dye) in cone (Christmas tree) clusters, prefers dry well drained full sun habitat. Poison Sumac is very bad stuff. It produces more "urushiol" than "poison ivy". Ol' Jason wouldn't be handling poison sumac like that. If he's not allergic it's a good bet a member of his family is.
I get such a bad reaction from sumac...like poison ivy. I worry about smoking myself. Still, I would love to see your video. I have also heard that rhubarb leaves give off OA if you lay them across the top of the frames and let the bees chew them.
This isn't poison sumac, it's staghorn sumac. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhus_typhina
I don't know the relationship to why sumac may work. Maybe it does contain OA, maybe it's something else, maybe it's a bunch of BS. Time will tell I guess. lol
HI Jason, very interested in your sumac experiment. I’m about 45 minutes east of Youngstown, and have lots of sumac!
Just make sure it's Staghorn Sumac. Usually it grows in clusters and very quickly. Super invasive but the bees love it. lol
To the best of my knowledge bees are capped after about 6 days, so you have to treat every 5 days. If you left it 7 to 10 like you say there is a very big chance that mites can come out of a cell as adults and enter the next one thats about to be capped between treetments. Apparently the mites do not enter the cell till the last moments before being capped as the bees will detect them(some bee strains)and kill the larvae and empty the cell to get at them. Maybe worth a video to do a comparison, every 5 days or every 7 - 10. Also i am part way through my provap build, your video was a great help.
What you say about treating every 5 days sounds right. Last fall was my first and only attempt up till now to use OAV and I couldn't remember the exact days. Guess I should have researched that a little more before speaking about it. I was almost positive it was 7-10 days though. lol
I'm been working to fine tune my provap settings. I think my k type thermocouple is bad so I ordered another. Hope that fixes it. Good luck with your build!
I look at drone brood if I can. Very easy to tell if you have lots of mites. Pull out a few dozen larva. Sometimes you will see 5 or more mites a larva.
That's a great way to see how bad the mite population is but....There is not research saying "X" number of mites per drone larva means your population is high and you should treat. What number means you need to treat? With the wash I treat anything with over 4 mites per 100.
@@JCsBees Yeah going to treat for sure asap. I googled and tried to find something but couldnt find any thresholds. Would be nice if someone did some research on this.
Yeah, I have looked before and couldn't find any information either. You'd think someone would have done some studies but guess not.
Never heard of the sumac. Sounds interesting
Yeah some people swear by these berries and killing mites. On the down side it's not an approved method but I guess if it works why not. lol If it does work, I'd guess it's not approved because it's free.
Off topic question. New beekeeper here. My bees re queened themselves about a month ago and the population isn’t that great yet but this queen is laying up a storm. They are now making cells again and filling them with jelly. Someone told me checking them weekly will make them swarm. Is that correct?
Checking too much can disturb them but I understand why you are. Could you maybe extend the period between inspection to every 10 days? If they are making cells again I would guess they are thinking about swarming. Maybe there is something about the hive they don't like, not sure. Ever heard of absconding? That's usually the result of bees being bothered too much but in this cases they just leave and don't leave queen cells. Also all the bees leave. Best of luck!
Jason Chrisman I am afraid it’s too late in the year in Ohio for bees to swarm and survive. Am I correct? If I knock the cells down they will probably just make more.
I'm trying! Can't get
Use vodka then when you're done strain out the bees and mites. Voila! Delicious yum yum treat in the bee yard. Hint... You could use whiskey.
What is that guitar music at the end? It sounds very familiar and it is driving me crazy to identify it.
It's listed in the video credits at the end. Can't remember the name off the top of my head.
Do you treat your bees in a spring?
Very important information, Jason. Bees are a part of the Agriculture spectrum, and if our livestock get attacked by viruses and the like that threatens their health, we treat them or have them treated. Same with our(God's) honey bees. We need to treat when they need our help. Thanks.
How about the mineral oil in the fogger thanks ?
I wonder how stinging nettle leaves dried, would do as they are full of formic acid?
Started this week with OA
Spot on boss.
VERY , VERY Well Said Jason, you said Everything Exactly as it should be said.My father n law perfect example ,"I don't see any mites" well , you probably won't,if u do they are infested... can't wait for Sumac Video!
A lot of people say this. Kinda of the same reason some people hit deer crossing the road, they didn't see them but they were there. lol
@@JCsBees yeah,bout like the TF bs.How come mine get pms if I do nothing? We have a well-known Dr. (Foreigner) down the road that catches Feral swarms an supposedly don't treat or ever feed sugar but I catch the same bees and if they can't abscond from mites they die lol
half cup =300 bee
He knows just miss spoke
Do I need to cage the queen before OA treatment?
If they all have mites and treatment is harmless to the bees just treat and save your 300 bees.
That works but the beekeepers learns nothing about their stock by just treating. To learn how yours bees genetic works against varroa you should do a wash every few weeks. Beside 300 bees is nothing when 1200 are born daily, right? Good luck this winter!!
I have did this happy
Great video!!
I paded for it . Omg Really
I bought 4 nucs from a guy that has over 300 colonies. I asked what his last might count was, he said he didn't know. Then he said he just treats at the end of the year when his colonies are broodless and followed that with "I don't have a mite problem, I get them from my neighbors"..... coincidentally every nuc I got from him is struggling and one needed a new queen right away.
I guess if you sell junk bees this year you'll get to sell junk bees next year too 😂
@Thomas Stone It's sad the bees I see being sold. You would think selling junk bees would catch up with the dealer but it doesn't seem to. This is mainly due to new beekeepers not knowing. I sure hope you can get your bees in the right direction soon. Best of luck!
Thank ya, well done
Why not do an alcohol wash and sugar roll on the same hive. Repeat on several hives. I would trust your testing more than anyone else. Thanks
That would be a good experiment but I am not sure I will have time with everything else I have going right now. Maybe in the future I will try this and share the information.
At 9:00, reads "Foric Pro", should read "Formic Pro".
You are correct. Nice job finding the type-o.
Hi has anyone heard about hives that have no floor, I.e. open to the air. Passive spiders soon appear and do a good job of cleaning!
Never heard of such a thing. Where did you hear about it?
Jason Chrisman Can’t remember where I saw this, but do you think it’s a good idea/ has some merit?
awesome video
Great vid thanks
My like good now
Thanks !!
Well I no we have to do mite wash but I don’t think there as accurate as they say I do mite wash don’t see mites do anouther one and I see 3 mites and so it’s not accurate I like to do mite wash but I still treat because I can’t trust mite wash
Can you see these little devil on your bees when looking in your bee hive?
@Carl Nickell Not without a trained eye. Watch the video I linked called "I Did Not Treat My Bees, I Didn't See Any Mites". In this video, I show how small mites are.
Sometimes you can see one on the thorax or top of abdomen. The mites prefer the underside of abdomen however so if you are seeing them, there are prob hundreds you dont see...
Think of it as treating diabetes with insulin before you know your what your sugar level is.
Many people, particularly first year beekeepers, would have trouble killing bees. Even if it was justified for the colony’s survival. Being a first year bee keeper myself, I don’t understand why you can’t treat your bees with OAV without doing an alcohol wash and collect the dead mites as the result of the treatment with a sticky bottom board insert tray when they fall through the screened bottom board. Doesn’t this give you the same or better information that you will need to make future decisions? Statistically you are sampling all the bees in your colony and not a much smaller subset which may or may not represent all the bees in the hive. I may be missing something but I don’t think this has been considered.
What you suggest makes since but I don't know why it's not done that way. Maybe it's not an effective way to get a good count, not sure. Maybe next season I can do some testing on this. Running out of time this year.
I think the idea behind doing a wash is to get a somewhat controlled sample of how many mites per bee you have.
If you were to count just the mites it doesn't give you a ratio of mites to bees as you don't know accurately how many bees are in a hive. In other words how many bees are actively carrying mites.
As has been said you are always going to have some mites in the hive. Mite management is just a balancing act of treating to keep levels low without harming the bees in the process.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few! 300 bees sacrificed for the colony's health.
Your hive will die without treatment. Treat all hives.