Bee diagnostic testing means checking a colony with evidence rather than a hunch, and for Australian beekeepers that mostly means counting varroa mites. With varroa established in NSW since 2022 and the country now in the management phase, a regular count is how you decide whether a hive needs treating at all. This page carries the Varroa EasyCheck CO2 recharge, a 16g screw-type cartridge for the non-lethal EasyCheck mite tester.
The EasyCheck puts around 200 bees and their mites to sleep with carbon dioxide. A short shake drops the mites through the mesh for counting, and the bees come round within half a minute and can return to the hive. One cartridge runs up to 12 tests, so to size an order, multiply your hives by the checks you plan this season and divide by 12. Squeeze the trigger gently at the start, as the gas is under high pressure.
The EasyCheck jar itself is sold without gas and is listed under our varroa testing equipment, alongside the alcohol-wash Varroa Checker. When a count comes back high, act on it with one of our varroa mite treatments, then repeat the count to see whether it worked. Bee diagnostic testing can cover the harvest too: a honey refractometer, often searched as a honey tester, reads the water content of a honey crop ahead of bottling.
Carbob Dioxide (CO2) bottle for non-lethal Varroa EasyCheck