Original oxalic trickling recipe

[Finman]

Get a digital kitchen scale and measure

warm water 100 g
sugar ........100 g
oxalic acid.....7,5 g

That dose is for 3 douple brood hive or for 5 one box hive.

Get a syringe for 100 ml or 50 ml

****************

When the hive is broodless, and out temp is 0C- +5C,
dribble to the hive into the frames gaps

- 3 ml to a small winter cluster per seam
- one box is full of bees, trickle 4 ml per seam

- to douple brood hive give 5 ml/seam. Even if you do not see the bees properly, they are there.
- Do not separate the boxes. Give the stuff into seams from upper box

******

It takes couple of days when mites start to drop from bees. They will drop during next month.

Part of mites drop into empty cells and when you handle frames in spring, you may get tens of dead mites from combs. That is why mite count in spring does not tell about mite load.

****************

The gap in brooding is so narrow in Britain that needless to think that you do 2 trickling. But don't do it inside month because it does not help.

If you have brood during winter, it is really possible to take brood frames off and then trickle.

***********
Trickling the swarm is a good idea. It polish the bees.

***********
You may trickle hives even if they are not in cluster. Cold trickling day is good because bees not not jump on you, as they use to do in warm weather over +5C. You are hurry to put on the cover because cluster will expand in a minute and bees start to defend themselves.

After trickling colony use to expand and fill the wintering box. They spread this way the stuff and they will calm down in couple of days.

*************

Trickling is about 10 years old method and verified countless times.
It does not make real harm to bees. If you do not like it, don't do it. But let others do it and do not provocate the issue.

Oxalic acid trickling is the best varroa killing method ever found: it is easy, effective and cheap, and no harmfull residues to honey or to wax.

Carrot has 100 times more oxalic acid than oxalic acid in the hoiney of hive.

.

.

 

[For want of a better word]

It does not make real harm to bees. If you do not like it, don't do it. But let others do it and do not provocate the issue.

Should come with a warning that queen's life may be drastically shortened by pouring acid over her mid winter... but then if you are a honey thief and re ~ queen every year with the bestest imported queen for the absolute maximum production... it really is of no real consequence,,,, is it?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Get a digital kitchen scale and measure

warm water 100 g
sugar ........100 g
oxalic acid.....7,5 g

That dose is for 3 douple brood hive or for 5 one box hive.

Get a syringe for 100 ml or 50 ml

****************

When the hive is broodless, and out temp is 0C- +5C,
dribble to the hive into the frames gaps

- 3 ml to a small winter cluster per seam
- one box is full of bees, trickle 4 ml per seam

- to douple brood hive give 5 ml/seam. Even if you do not see the bees properly, they are there.
- Do not separate the boxes. Give the stuff into seams from upper box

******

It takes couple of days when mites start to drop from bees. They will drop during next month.

Part of mites drop into empty cells and when you handle frames in spring, you may get tens of dead mites from combs. That is why mite count in spring does not tell about mite load.

****************

The gap in brooding is so narrow in Britain that needless to think that you do 2 trickling. But don't do it inside month because it does not help.

If you have brood during winter, it is really possible to take brood frames off and then trickle.

***********
Trickling the swarm is a good idea. It polish the bees.

***********
You may trickle hives even if they are not in cluster. Cold trickling day is good because bees not not jump on you, as they use to do in warm weather over +5C. You are hurry to put on the cover because cluster will expand in a minute and bees start to defend themselves.

After trickling colony use to expand and fill the wintering box. They spread this way the stuff and they will calm down in couple of days.

*************

Trickling is about 10 years old method and verified countless times.
It does not make real harm to bees. If you do not like it, don't do it. But let others do it and do not provocate the issue.

Oxalic acid trickling is the best varroa killing method ever found: it is easy, effective and cheap, and no harmfull residues to honey or to wax.

Carrot has 100 times more oxalic acid than oxalic acid in the hoiney of hive.

.

.

Thanks for that Finman - bought ready made treatment up until now but this year have bought the oxalic crystals (and the scales!) to make my own - saved me looking up the recipe

 

[For want of a better word]

oxalic acid.....7,5 g...

... is that the hydride , di-hydride or just the normal dried stuff?

 

[oliver90owner]

or just the normal dried stuff

You mean the anhydride (ie anhydrous oxalic acid)? That is not the 'normal'form.

RAB

 

[Finman]

.
It is didhydrate oxalic acid in formulas. It has 27% water in molar mass conpared to "dry acid"..

There are large variation in trickling formulas and they are all safe to bees

- in Switzerland and Canada 2,8%
- in most countries 3,5%
- Italy 4%

 

[Finman]

[

Should come with a warning that queen's life may be drastically shortened by pouring acid over her mid winter...?

NO, because oxalic acid does not shorten the queen's life.
At the beginning it was warned that give only one trickling during a year, but now it is not valid any more.

Those beekeepers, who have 1000 hives, they say that queen lives as long as over 10 years ago

Nowadays in Finland stándard method is to give 2 treatments with OA, in November and in March.

Standard does not mean that all do it. It means that it is safe procedure to bees and lethal to mites.

[

pouring acid over her mid winter...?

Trickle, don't pour

.Formic acid has been reported to kill queens if it is given in more than 25C temperatures.
No queen losses have reported with trickling and spring build up has been normal.


.

 

[Finman]

.
more discussion

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=20&page=3

 

[Finman]

.
Interesting comparative research in Turkey 2004 - 2005

http://vetdergi.kafkas.edu.tr/extdocs/2010_6/941_945.pdf


In this reasearch it has bee usen harsh methods

→ 4% oxalic acid was made with sugar syrup (1
L sugar syrup (1:1) + 100 g oxalic acid dihydrate), by
dripping between the frames, giving 5 ml for each space,
at three ti mes in 7-day intervals.

So, Italian solution weekly....

The area of the brood cells was measured before
and aft er the acid treatments during the spring trial. The
mean percentage increases of these areas are shown in
Table 3.

There was no significant difference between
the acid and control groups at the level of 0.05, indicating
that none of the acids had a negati ve eff ect on the
egg laying of the queen bees. Finally, there were no
observable side-effects or abnormal bee deaths during
any of the trials in the treated or control colonies.