Thank you for this! I need to check mine and wanted to do it this way rather than killing them if I could. This was very clear.

Looking at the amateurish way the test was done with total lack of attention to hygiene no wonder colony losses are so high. Coming from a farming background you learn that just like humans, stock animals thrive when they are reared in a clean healthy environment. Wearing dirty old clothing/bee suits, not cleaning tools and gloves from hive to hive plus housing bees in rotten old leaky hives is a recipe for disaster. So many bee videos on KZfaq and often eventthose filmed by professional bee keepers, seem to forget one of the most important factors in bee husbandry is cleanliness at every level ~ PERIOD... These rules apply to any farmed animal if mortality is to be reduced significantly. Farmers who adopt these basic rules always end up making most profit. We all know of Florence Nightingale and how she recognised the importance of hygiene for saving thousands of soldiers lives. It appears many keepers in the bee community employ pre-Florence Nightingale tactics resulting time and again with colony wipe out. If people look after your bees and change their habits they will be constantly rewarded with bumper crops and significantly less disease and mortality...