As reported, I had slid varroa boards into both hives a week ago and I checked them today. Although the Star is broodless, it still had quite unhealthy numbers, but the real surprise was the Moon, that had been such a star last year. Despite the fact that it had a broodless period, too, during which - surely - mite numbers must have depleted, the varroa obviously felt at home there and reproduced at almost alarming levels. Also, I guess because I wasn't able to remove any drone comb, as I did last year, the varroa had a nice, undisturbed time.
Now, maybe I'm miscounting: there are an awful lot of 'empty' mites (just the back shells) and very light ellipses that don't seem to have legs, but I put them all down as varroa - better safe than sorry, I reckon.
Given the tallies (Moon: 134 mites in 6 days, Star 54 in 6 leading to daily drops of 22 and 9 respectively), both will be getting the Apiguard treatment as soon as the honey is off.
Darn those mites!
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