The mites (excluding ticks) in the NMNH Collection are housed at the Beltsville location of the Systematic Entomology Laboratory (SEL). The SEL staff working with the collection are Ronald Ochoa and Robert L. Smiley (retired; resident Research Associate). The collection was recently moved to refurbished quarters in Building 005, BARC-West, 10300 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, Maryland 20705-2350. Previously, parts of the mite collection had been in two separate buildings and three separate rooms.

During the last three weeks of September, 1999, the SEL staff at Beltsville very carefully packed thousands of slide boxes and hundreds of alcohol jars containing the mite and insect (scales, aphids, whiteflies, psyllids, and thrips) collections. In the first week of October 1999, with the help of professional movers, all of the collections were moved to Building 005. The slide-mounted mite specimens are now in Room 002, and the mites in alcohol are in Room 001. Room 008 is the mite research office.

Several important improvements to the mite collection have been made recently. The Smithsonian Collection Improvement Fund provided for the purchase of 1200 new slide boxes. SEL base funds were to use to purchase steel cabinets and special drawers for storage of the valuable Keifer dry collection of plant host material and mites as well as new steel Vidmar cabinets for safe storage of the mites in alcohol, including the Newell collection of water mites. New office furniture and a new Leica microscope with top-of-the-line DIC lens have been assigned to the mite section. The new facilities in Building 005 also include space for visitors.

These improvements will prove beneficial for this historically important collection, for those who curate and improve it, and for those from around the world who come to Beltsville to work with it.