Sticky boards and alcohol washes

On May 7 I put sticky boards into hives #1, 2 & 3.  I left them in until May 12, five days.  The counts were: #1-5; #2-7; #3-1.  These are acceptable numbers, less than 1 mite a day.  Randy Oliver recommends alcohol washes as he feels they are more reliable.  Below is my (edited) email to him and his response.
On Sun, May 7, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Tom Sherwood wrote:

Randy-
In 2006, in IPM 4 Fighting Varroa4: Reconnaissance Mite sampling methods and thresholds, you published a chart of the most appropriate method of monitoring mites.  From subsequent articles and your talks, I infer that you prefer an alcohol wash. 
Up until now, I have used either a sticky board or powdered sugar shake.  (I have 3 Langstroth and 1 top bar hive.)
My question: Is the chart from 2006 six still your recommendation or is it time to change to alcohol washes?

Yep, alcohol wash, swirl rather than shake, hands down.  Sugar shake second.  Stickies far too unreliable.

Randy

Because I respect his opinion, I decided to switch to alcohol washes.  A later posting of his suggested an easier way to make the washer using a square of tulle cloth as a filter instead of a screen.  So I went to Beverly's Fabrics and bought 1/2 yard of tulle.

Maidi picked up some cups for me at Gayles and I assembled the equipment.

 I did the count on Olea's as I had recently done the sticky board count on the others.  Inspecting a top bar hive is more work for me than the Langstroths.  This is because the comb has to be cut away from the hive for each bar and I must move each bar to get to a central comb.  I wanted to take a comb from the center of the brood area, maybe number 9 or 10.  By the time I had I reached number 13 (out of 21), I had had enough.  There was drone brood and some worker on 13 and 14, so I used those for my sample.  I shook the bees into the tub, then scooped up 1/2 cup, but when I poured them into the alcohol, I spilled a bunch.  So I took some more from the tub, not knowing how much I had in the tester.

The sample in the tester

I swirled them around for at least a minute, and, to my dismay, saw this:

There are 10 mites in there!  Because I was unsure of the number of bees I sampled, I compulsively counted them; 232.

232 bees

This comes to an infestation rate of 4.3%, way too high for this time of year.  I need to treat Olea's, but how is the question.  I do not want to use Apivar strips, for although the are effective and easy to use in a top bar hive, one cannot use them when there is honey being made.  The MAQ is good, but difficult to use in a top bar.  Apiguard can't be used during the honeyflow and oxalic acid does not work when there is capped brood.  I am just going to have to bite the bullet and figure out a way to use the MAQ's.
I did an alcohol was on #2 today- 0 (zero) mites!  The two lateral frames were still empty so I did not add a second box.  I will probably check #1 & 3 this week.
In other news, I looked into the nuc with the feral swarm 3 days ago.  They had only built one smallish bit of comb and I saw no queen activity.  I may have overlooked the signs, but I think they are doomed.