Having put varroa trays in on Tuesday last week - today I decided to do another count.After scanning the trays from Heather and Alice several times with a magnifying glass, I made the count 3 in Alice, and 4 in Heather. Being a pessimist and rounding up to 10 each, that makes the daily mite drop 10/6 =1.67. The table given at the Spring Varroa Count shows the danger level for July as 16 - so nowhere close, which is a good sign. Probably the artificial swarming of Heather, and the repeated supersedure and break in brood laying in Alice accounts for this. I didn’t do a count in Poly, as its a swarm of flying bees, so should be much lower than in Heather.
I also added a feeder to Heather - they’d started filling brace comb under the coverboard with honey.
Alice is a relatively weak colony now, but the frames were packed with brood and eggs, so she seems to have a good queen now, and should recover well before Winter.
