The Sugar Roll

To assess the number of varroa mites, there is a simple, non destructive, immediate test I know called the Sugar Roll.

All you need is two honey jars, a way to close one jar top leaving 3mm holes (either a bit of plastic greenhouse mesh or a bit of an onion bag), plus a packet of icing sugar.

Put 3tsp of sugar in one jar, then take an outer brood frame and check carefully the queen is not there, then bump the bees off into a square cornered box and pour them up to one corner and then into the jar until it is half full. The bees are a bit surprised and only a few fly away. Cover the jar with the mesh and fix it with a rubber band. Roll to jar sideways in your fingers. Continue until all the bees are coated. Now fill the other jar half full with water and set the first jar upside down on top. Sugar trickles through for about 5 minutes as the bees continue to kick and struggle. The sugar dissolves and the mites float, clearly visible. Release the bees at the hive entrance.

If you want to be scientific, don’t release the bees but immerse the jar in detergent water to kill the bees, then rinse them with a fine sieve beneath to see how many mites survived the sugar and then count the number of bees in your sample to get an accurate measure of the percentage infestation. You can multiply up to get an estimate of the total mite population.

From ‘The Beeholder’, Spring 2005, the Montgomeryshire BKA’s newsletter, courtesy of BEES

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