This morning we took the bottom of the hive out and cleaned it. We then drew a grid on it and then covered it with a layer of vaseline.

We have put it back into the hive for 24 hours. As the drone bees hatch, the varroa mites which suck their blood will fall to the bottom and stick to the vaseline. We will then count how many there are to find our “daily drop rate”. 

If this goes above a certain amount we then have to treat the bees.

The only problem is that the treatment only kills about 97% of varroa mites!

We will have to continually do this forever!