Little pink spiders

[Angiey]

Treated with beevital 6 days ago and when checking for varroa on pull out tray discovered loads of little pink spiders on the board that were moving at great speed. Does anyone know what they are??

 

[Deeperdiverdude]

Red spider mites possibly?

 

[Angiey]

Here is photo They are really small. Pin head size

 

[richardbees]

glad someone's asked this, as i've started noticing them!

I always get red spider mite on my Aubergine plant leaves - they're much smaller and slower than these.

 

[Angiey]

Yes. They are pink in colour and can move from one side of the board to the other in a matter of seconds,

 

[cmaryon]

Yes, I believe they come out in particularly dry conditions as we have generally had over the last weeks (until this week)

 

[Deeperdiverdude]

Try googling braula coeca (bee louse) and see if yours look the same.

DDD

 

[zubzub]

I have Googled the image and checked back and the op pic looks like they only have 6 legs so could be in the running for id.

ZZ

 

[richardbees]

Deeper, second thoughts, maybe! I'll catch one for a closer look

 

[richardbees]

found one on the v board today, the same size as your photo but under a lens it clearly had a pair of antenna which eliminates Braula....obviously no one else is much interested!

 

[Angiey]

Yes Richardbees. Next time I am out I will get the magnifying glass on mine but I am sure there is antennae on mine as well. After about three days the board on my OMF was pretty well evenly covered with them so I dont think they can be getting back up into the BBox. There seemed to be an increase in numbers every day suggesting they were stuck there and more were dropping off every day. I might be wrong.

 

[darren64]

pollen mites?

 

[Poussis]

Did you ever id these mites? I found the same on my varroa flor today. Lots of them!

 

[chalkie]

Looks like a pink aphid http://scienceblogs.com/myrmecos/2010/04/how_the_aphid_got_its_pink.php

 

[Woeski]

Disagree. Looks more like a tick/mite than an aphid. Body shape is wrong for aphid.

 

[Woeski]

Fingers crossed for a new predatory mite of varroa........
was there a mite drop?

 

[DanBee]

pollen mites?

Nope.

 

[wightbees]

pseudoscorpions by any chance ?

 

[wightbees]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombidiidae

looks like these.

 

[chrismcd]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombidiidae

looks like these.

Look like Red Velvet mites to me - probably larvae if they have six legs.

AFAIK there are a number of small, scavenging ones as well as the big ones that seem to get their photos taken!

So hopefully just scavenging around rather than attacking bees