Bees are dumped into the wooden caged through a big metal funnel. The cages all have sliding doors that can be shut off to keep the bees inside.
These cages are then each weighed, the data entered into a computer. Then the weight is sorted out. Each experimental hive then received two cages, the lightest combined with the heaviest, then the next pair... This way, each colony will end up with very similar number of bees. A subsample of bees are taken to count the mite/bee ratio, so the number of mites can be calculated.
