Mite eggs, Understanding mite behavior (sorting the good, the bad and the ugly)

[Frankster]

Starting to learn about the habits of these little critters, as they are very important component to understanding the larger picture. I think becoming familiarized with their breeding habits and where they tend to hang out, what they do, and identification of different species is critical for the "greenhouse' grower, or anyone doing large scale growing.

I've taken some picture of my predators laying eggs, I believe this is of the Neoseiulus californicus species, I'm not precisely sure, but that seems to make the most sense, considering the position of the eggs.

Lets take a closer look. the mites seem to prefer laying eggs in "ripe" pollen sacs, notice the immature unripened pollen sacs have no eggs present, only the really ripe ones. I don't see any mites either, so looks like mama took a leave of absence. I see lots of "dead bodies" of the target mites, but not many live ones.

The close up pics were difficult to obtain and were done at 8x magnification on the cellphone plus 30x magnification on a loop.