Our Mite Reapers were originally selected from a population of bees that we had acquired through doing cut outs. We selected the top 10% of honey producing colonies in this population and performed alcohol mite washes. Any that washed 6 or above we're removed from the pool as well as any that were overly defensive. We then performed liquid nitrogen hygienic testing and again removed any that did not test 95%+ hygienic. During the second year of this breeding program we began performing VSH assays using the selection criteria pioneered by Dr John Harbo. We are now in the 5th year of our breeding program and only select breeders when they score highly on both the liquid nitrogen hygienic test as well as the VSH assays.

What can the harvest hope for if not for the Reaper.