Medication: Easy-Check Mite Wash (Ships directly from warehouse)

Varroa EasyCheck Mite Wash Kit

The five-minute varroa mite test: a sample of about 300 bees, a splash of alcohol or soapy water, and a count you can act on. The EasyCheck’s two-part cup and mesh basket keep the bees separated from the wash, so the mites drop through, the liquid stays in the cup, and the count is readable in seconds. It is the test we run before and after every oxalic acid treatment, and the one we hand to every customer who asks “did it work?”

Why test before you treat

• Know the number: a wash gives you mites per 100 bees. Above about 3 per 100, treat; below that, keep watching. Judging by how the colony looks does not work, because the mites are hidden in capped brood until it is too late.
• Prove the treatment worked: wash the same colony again two weeks after an oxalic acid series and compare the two numbers.
• No leaks, no mess: the redesigned cap seals on the cup. Scoop, swirl, lift the basket, count.

What’s included

• EasyCheck cup with sealing cap
• Mesh sample basket with a fill line for about 300 bees
• Instructions. Works with 70% isopropyl alcohol, windshield washer fluid or soapy water.

Three hundred bees to protect thirty thousand is the easiest trade in beekeeping. The full procedure, with photos, is in how to do a mite wash. Sold and shipped by Lorob Bees, Baltimore, MD.