Oxalic acid applicator?

[Hawklord]

I used the 50ml syringe last year but found it difficult to deliver a 5ml per seam dosage. Does anybody use the 5ml auto syringe?

 

[For want of a better word]

I used the 50ml syringe last year but found it difficult to deliver a 5ml per seam dosage. Does anybody use the 5ml auto syringe?

winter already

what happened to summer

i suppose the killer dribblers will be out in force again

i use a vaxox vaporiser
many use thymol or apiguaard type treatment in autumn when temps are high enough
and thymolated sugar fees before putting to bed for winter with ample ventilation and insulation and do not interfere with colony till next spring... except for the occasional heft !

i suppose in fairness to answer the op... no why not fill a stack of 5ml syringes

phew.. can i leave all the dribble go now!

 

[alanf]

I used the 50ml syringe last year but found it difficult to deliver a 5ml per seam dosage. Does anybody use the 5ml auto syringe?

I use 20ml syringes, but only because I have a few. If you fill a couple before starting it only takes a second or two to change. May be easier to control than a 50ml because the plunger travels about twice as far with less resistance.

Also try different ways of holding the syringe. If you're not already, try holding it across your palm, something like an auto pipette. It gives a lot more control than the "two fingers".

 

[Hawklord]

I found the vaporizer wasn't as effective as the trickle.

 

[For want of a better word]

I found the vaporizer wasn't as effective as the trickle.

each to their own... both have their champions..

vaporiser needs a bit of skill to operate and could vaporise the beekeeper
trickling means opening hive at the worst possible time for the bees and fiddling around with syringes and messy formulas
back in the last century when trickling was all the new fad i did use it, suffered losses and did not notice a huge varroa drop.

saying that i have not noticed a huge varroa drop with vaporising... probably because of the autumn apigaard / thymol/ feeding etc etc?

 

[Red Bee]

I used the 50ml syringe last year but found it difficult to deliver a 5ml per seam dosage. Does anybody use the 5ml auto syringe?

I use a needle on the end of the syringe which slows down the feed rate if that helps.

 

[iand]

I use a lamb dosing gun set to 5ml per squeeze of the trigger. I got mine f.o.c from a local Agric merchant, even though I didn't buy a load of wormer to go with it.
Just need to drill a hole in the screw on top of a suitable plastic container and away you go, wash out then dispose of container in the normal way.

 

[Hombre]

With a cheap or second hand spray container such as that used for the garden or the kitchen, stick some 1:1 syrup in and adjust to squirt rather than spray. The spray hole may need to be adjusted to get a proper squirt.

Either measure or weigh ten squirts to determine the amount of syrup delivered on each full pull on the trigger, by dividing the total delivery by ten, to reduce the measuring accuracy.

So it might take as many as five pulls per seam (I can't remember) but it's either cheap at the Pound shop or free if you wash out a kitchen sample.

I saw a couple of years ago, during a cold winter. a dosing gun that wouldn't perform properly because of the viscosity of the syrup. And that was neither free nor cheap.

Not only that, but a lot of the tops on these sprays have a thread that is compatible with a lot of drinks bottles - for a larger reservoir if needed.

 

[masterBK]

It is oxalic time up here in the north. Today, having checked several colonies chosen at random and found no evidence of brood, I treated all my colonies with trickled oxalic acid syrup. I noticed a couple of months ago that the queens were cutting back laying earlier this year than last year.

 

[Into the lions den]

I use a lamb dosing gun set to 5ml per squeeze of the trigger. I got mine f.o.c from a local Agric merchant, even though I didn't buy a load of wormer to go with it.
Just need to drill a hole in the screw on top of a suitable plastic container and away you go, wash out then dispose of container in the normal way.

Thats the way to go...we get the guns from the local agricultural dealers.......a sheep doser they call them, and they come in a variety of sizes, all of them adjustable. The oxalic/syrup mix attacks the seals over time, so its new ones every season.

3 litre backpack and you can do 60 to 100 hives on every fill of the bottle. One pair of workers ( one lifts the other applies) can do 500 colonies in a full day, more normally 350 or so.

Very very fast, and I do not find it intrusive as we do it when the cluster is pretty tight and settled. I understand the vapourising has done some serious damage to some European beekeepers (anecdotal, I cannot cite), and a local chemist (as in a Uni chemist, not a dispenser) is actually horrified that we could even consider the sublimation method. Actual words were . 'Oh my god, have you ANY idea how dangerous that is?' He is a beekeeper too btw.

 

[Greatbigchicken]

I used a 5 ml syringe and just filled it from a small pot for each stream. I only have a couple of hives so this worked well, if you've got lots it could be rather time consuming.

 

[VEG]

What is the difficulty of using a bigger syringe? Less faff re filling for every seam, the hive is open for less time. It doesnt have to be exact after all there are different amounts of bees in each seam so at best it is just a good guess.

 

[Finman]

.
I have 60 ml

.

 

[victor meldrew]

.
I have 60 ml

.

Wow!
Would you like a 'flannel watch with treacle fingers' or a 'chocolate.moggie' ?

VM

 

[drex]

Being a medic I have acces to all syringe sizes, of 5,10,20 and 50 ml syringes. I find 20 ml work best. 2 likely to be needed for hive. Less clumsy to use than 50, and 5 & 10 involved too many changes of syringe.

 

[itma]

Nobody advocating the Trickle2 (measured dispense) bottles from T's (and probably others)?

Obviously not for mass production, but seems a nice solution for the hobbyist.

 

[alanf]

Nobody advocating the Trickle2 (measured dispense) bottles from T's (and probably others)?

Obviously not for mass production, but seems a nice solution for the hobbyist.

If you want to practice with the bottles the empty ones are under a quid if you're at a shop or adding to another order. Can't say I've used it, but I have seen them in use and had several fluids in the bottle type before.

The bottle design is great for measuring single doses of fluid, 5 ml in this case. Downside is that repeated 5ml doses have to be measured by inverting the bottle and gently squeezing. That means you're open two or three times as long as a syringe or auto-syringe where you can dribble up one seam and back the next. It's a positive that measuring more than 5ml is hard. Negative that waving the bottle around and a tendency to raise it to eye level means you could either miss seams or double dose some.

I'll second @Drex's observation that for many people delivering ten evenly spread doses from a 50ml or greater syringe can be hard, especially if you hands are large or small. Much easier to control two or three 20ml syringes. It's a fair compromise between handling many syringes and having one that's harder to control. As for all these manual dexterity things, use whatever you're confident with and if there are any doubts practice measuring doses with water before you start opening hives. Take some time to work out how you're going to hold the thing. For most people holding the barrel across the palm with all the fingers and pushing the plunger with the thumb is easier to control dose and placing than having the barrel between the fingers.

 

[Luminos]

Nobody advocating the Trickle2 (measured dispense) bottles from T's (and probably others)?

Obviously not for mass production, but seems a nice solution for the hobbyist.

Yes that's what I'll be doing later on