Organic Honey Bee Colony Management: How to Do a Sugar Roll
Organic Honey Bee Colony Management: How to Do a Sugar Roll
Length: 00:02:38 | Robyn Underwood, Ph.D.
A sugar roll will allow you to determine whether your honey bee colony needs to be treated for Varroa mites. Using common items easily accessible to beekeepers, this method effectively determines the number of mites per 100 bees.
(bee buzzing)
A sugar roll can help you determine the infestation level of varroa mites in your honeybee colonies.
So, how do you do it?
Open the hive and look for a frame of older, unkept brood covered in nurse bees.
Make sure the queen is not on the frame.
If she is, you can secure her in a queen clip or simply move her to another frame.
When you're ready, shake the bees off and into a wash basin.
Check one last time to make sure the queen is not in your sample.
Bang the bees into one corner of the basin.
Use a measuring cup to scoop up a half cup of bees.
Pour the bees into a clean, dry pint jar.
Add a mesh lid made from hardware cloth that is eight squares per inch to allow the mites through but hold the bees back.
Add approximately two tablespoons of fresh, dry powdered sugar through the mesh lid.
Make sure the bees are completely covered in sugar.
Allow the jar to sit in the shade for one minute.
At this point, dump the extra bees back into the hive.
Gently roll the bees in the jar in the sugar for two minutes.
Turn the jar upside down over the white wash basin and shake it up and down vigorously for 60 seconds.
The sugar and varroa mites will come out of the jar and land in the basin.
Carefully look through the sugar in the basin for mites.
If you're having trouble seeing the mites in the powder, you can spray it with a little water to dissolve the sugar and make the mites easier to see.
A half cup scoop is roughly 300 bees, and an acceptable number of mites is 2% or less.
So, if you counted more than 6 mites, you need to act.
For more information, visit the Penn State Extension website and search for Varroa IPM.
(bee buzzing)
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