Varroa 3 in 1 tester Deluxe

Luxury Varroa tester in transparent design that allows you to perform 3 tests:

• Number of infestations in your bee colony
• Hygiene in your bee colony
• Resistance of Varroa mites against medications

Test 1

- Collect about 300 bees in the middle part of the Varroa tester and screw on the top part so the bees cannot escape.
- Fill the bottom part with a tablespoon of powdered sugar and attach it to the other two parts.
- Shake the entire Varroa tester for 1/2 minutes and make sure all the sugar falls back into the bottom part. The mites will fall down with it.
- Unscrew the bottom part and add water to dissolve the powdered sugar. The mites will float on the water and are easy to count.

With 0-3 mites you have a low infection, 3-10 mites average infection and 10+ mites high infection.

Test 2

- Pierce the 10-15 day old brood from a brood box with the spikes of the tester.
- Make sure the brood is damaged by piercing 2 to 3 times. You only need to damage the brood in one spot (same size as the spikes).
- The bees will clean the cells; if the cells are 70% cleaned after 6 hours, 90% after 8 hours, and 100% after a day, your bee colony has a good hygienic instinct.

Test 3

This test is for the same hive where you performed test 1.

- Fill the middle part of the tester with about 150 bees, collected from a brood box. Close it with the top part of the tester.
- Attach an oxalic acid soaked strip (art. 2772) to the container where you collected the bees.
- Place the container with the strip at the top in a dark room at room temperature and wait 6 hours.
- Then remove the strip and shake the container several times over a white paper.

The mites are not resistant to the given medication if the number is greater than 1/4 of the result from test 1.