Logic and mite counts

[chux]

My mentor is a commercial beekeeper. He uses chemical treatments for mites every year. No need to check for mite counts. Everybody gets the treatment.

I have read behind and listened to many beekeepers with varying numbers of hives and experience. Most seem to encourage the use of a mite count. Get a mite count by sugar roll, ether roll, or sticky board. Treat if you are over threshold X. Don't treat if you are under the threshold. On a smaller backyard scale, this seems to make sense. On a larger scale, not so much.

Now I have run into something new to me. Beeks who claim to be treatment free, who still do mite counts. I heard one beek make the statement that he will change nothing in his management strategy, regardless of the mite count, even as he loads bees into a jar to shake. I guess I am missing the logic here. If I do not plan on changing anything in my management of the hive, why should I do a mite check? It's just a number in my head, if I won't do anything about it. And, I am probably killing or injuring a handful of bees in the process. And I'm wasting my time to get a useless number.

I'm not trying to say you shouldn't do mite counts if you don't plan on doing anything with those numbers. I just don't understand why you would, and I'd like for someone to explain the logic to me. Personally, I have followed the plan of my mentor in treating automatically. I have 30 hives now. I think that I will continue to treat these hives with the same management style. I also hope to start another yard with treatment-free hives. I don't plan on doing mite counts in that yard, sense I will not be treating them, no matter what. Let the strong survive, and weed-out the weak stock. Should I rethink this issue of mite counts in that yard?   

[Michael Bush]

When I first regressed the bees to small cell I did mite counts.  I wanted to know if it was working or not.  I haven't done any now for a decade.  But the inspector does.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm

[chux]

When I first regressed the bees to small cell I did mite counts.  I wanted to know if it was working or not.  I haven't done any now for a decade.  But the inspector does.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm

You wanted to see if your change in management was having effect. That makes sense to me.

I'm thinking I need to decide which road to take with each hive. Treat or don't treat (with chems). No middle ground. If I treat this year, I have introduced the chemical and changed the environment in the hive and in the gut of the bees. I have opened the box, so to speak. Might as well treat next year too. Regardless of mite numbers. If I am not going to treat, then the numbers don't matter. Survival or collapse tells me everything I need to know in that case. 

[iddee]

Doing mite counts in untreated hives tells you which ones to split and raise queens from.

It can also tell you how many packages to order for the coming deadouts in the spring   

[chux]

"Doing mite counts in untreated hives tells you which ones to split and raise queens from."

That makes sense to me.

iddee, were you one of those kids who shakes his presents under the tree because he can't wait until Christmas morning to figure out what he is getting? Don't we all love the spring surprise of deadouts???

[BeeMaster2]

Chux,
What Iddee said. I use a dry oil pan under my hives now and I routinely check them when I am killing the SHB and carpenter ants. I clean them at least once a week.
I last year I had several swarm hives from commercial hives that were full of mites. Not real heavy but about 60-70 a week. I should have and had planned to re-queened them but never did. Those hives either did not make it or absconded in the spring.
The rest of the hives have almost no mites in the pans. Just a few mites per week.
You can learn a lot just tracking which hives are having problems and how they do compared to the ones that do not have problems.
Jim

[iddee]

No, I slipped in and cut a hole in the bottom where no one could see it, and looked.No guessing for me.