Oxalic Acid Vaporizer

[Tom Bick]

Dribbling is not entirely disturbance free, but dribbling at brood minimum with pre-warmed oxalic causes very little disturbance, often the bees don't even break cluster and is also a very quick procedure - start to finish in the field it's less than a minute for removing the roof, cracking the crown board, dribbling over 10 seams of bees and reassembling the hive.

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Sorry but dont the bees cluster to keep warm and if a sudden heat loss happens then you are going to stay put bees know that the cold kills them.

And do we know what happens in the hive after the roof is replaced with the drop in temp and a large amount of bees covered in a liquid

The more I think about it I think the dribbling method has evolved for our convenience. The bees if a strong colony shows no obvious harm because they will make do with the situation but a smaller colony?

 

[Hivemaker.]

I did not even need to weigh the OA - by volume was close enough. No sugar syrup to make up, no OA to dissolve. Yes, I think much quicker, as long as not at the bottom of a long field!

Regards, RAB

Many with a couple of hives buy ready made solution,20 seconds,job done.
Can you remove the mouse guard,foam the entrance,and vaporize the oxalic in less time than 20 seconds, including replacing mouse guard.


varrox vaporizer.
four and a half minutes at least,not counting the time to remove mouse guard,foam entrance and replace after.

Oxalic acid is placed in the pan and the appliance then inserted through the entrance of the hive. The hive is sealed with a sponge and the VARROX-vaporizer heated for 2 ½ minutes. The vaporizer remains in the hive for another 2 minutes and afterwards cooled briefly in water. The treated hive is left shut for another 10 minutes.

http://www.biovet.ch/en/Imkerei/varrox-vaporizer.html

 

[ian]

Hi Tom

Whilst many U.k beeks have not used Oxalic or only have a season or 2 use under their belt it's been in use in Europe for 10-15 years.

There have been large amounts of research done, even down to the point of bee mortality and influence on Spring development after treatments. Concerns about damp bees and disturbance are simply unfounded.

As to small colonies I treat all my nuc's with oxalic and expect this seasons Winter losses in the nuc's to be well below 10%

You are not a million miles away and if you want to pop down in the Spring to see these poor damp hives you are more than welcome!

When oxalic acid was first used Vaporising was the order of the day in many of the early European trials. However most of the institutes and research groups have since moved on to trickling. These are just the simple facts.

I have yet to see anyone give any advantages of vaporising over trickle and I thought that was the point of the discussion. Quoting some old beek with 60 hives who brought a vapouriser 2 seasons ago is not really a comparison to 10-15 years of research and trials by beekeeping groups and institutions all over Europe(except in the U.K of course as we are still not meant to use it)


Regards Ian

 

[m100]

Sorry but dont the bees cluster to keep warm and if a sudden heat loss happens then you are going to stay put bees know that the cold kills them.

And do we know what happens in the hive after the roof is replaced with the drop in temp and a large amount of bees covered in a liquid

The more I think about it I think the dribbling method has evolved for our convenience. The bees if a strong colony shows no obvious harm because they will make do with the situation but a smaller colony?

Firstly the temperature change is not that drastic, the hive walls can be at ambient temperature and can often be below freezing. The crownboard will be warmer but the heat loss is minimal during the manipulation (8-10 deg C on the outside of the cluster with an ambient say 6 degrees below that) and its the bees self produced heat post disturbance that does most harm

As for a large amount of bees covered in liquid that is absolutely correct, 5ml evenly distributed along the full seam gives just 1.6 microlitres per bee (5ml/3000 bees in a fully occupied seam)

A bee can collect between 40 and 80mg of nectar per visit, and there is around 30 litres of honey/sugar syrup stored in the cells of the comb at this time of year, the bees will continue to eat and breathe and produce moisture in the process, so 1.6 microlitres of oxalic acid per bee is 3/5 of 7/8 of bugger all.

Now do the equations on oxalic acid decomposition and the volume of CO2 liberated from a few g. It's just as well some leaks out of those dodgy seams on the hive as the hive might end up exploding

 

[sherwood]

Hi sherwood can you explain this a bit more for me are you saying the two hives that you dont apply OA to perform no different to the ones you treat or is it that you see little or no damage to the treated colonys with the vapouriser method.

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We have 2 hives which we have a policy of not applying OA. These hives like the other are monitored for varoa but rather than use OA we have been using Apivar on them as a comparison. I say that we have been using Apivar but in fact one of the hives showed little or no drop levels last year so it only got one treatment whereas the other had 2. All hives that show higher presence of varoa during the season will usually be dusted with icing sugar and will often have sacraficial drone brood if needed.
I am actively trying to find the hives that have the least level of varoa together with other wanted traits to breed from.
As a point worthy of mention I tend to find that it is the strongest hives going into winter that often come out the other side with the greater infestation.
I theorise that the strong hives are likely to be warmer and the Queen therefore more likely to continue laying or even laying more and of course where do the varoa want to be in with the lava.
I have recently purchased some formic acid evaporators and intend to test these in a couple of new hives I hope to populate this year.

 

[sherwood]

I have used the vapourisation method for 2 years now I have 12 hives and beleive me it is quicker

No it is not,not in any way,with a multi injection gun used for trickling it takes about15/20 seconds per hive,many do 200 hives per day easily.
And i have used the vapourization method,takes much longer than 20 seconds from start to finnish.

You may be slighlty biased here Hivemaker it is not all users that have access to a multi injector applicator for syrup. In fact I would suggest that it would be either costly to buy or complicated to make.

In fact none of my hives have hive entrances that are guarded by mouse guards as the entrances are all to small for mice to get in so I dont have to remove them. Neither do my crown boards have the feeder hole open or roof ventilation. They do however have open mesh floors that can be sealed tight with the insertion of the monitoring board. So all that is involved is slipping the monitoring board sliding the copper pipe in and applying the heat. Easy as pie really I am of course wearing protective clothing and mask.

 

[taff..]

You may be slighlty biased here Hivemaker it is not all users that have access to a multi injector applicator for syrup. In fact I would suggest that it would be either costly to buy or complicated to make.

not really, £2.17 with a 100ml of 3.2% or 77p empty

 

[Hivemaker.]

You may be slighlty biased here Hivemaker it is not all users that have access to a multi injector applicator for syrup. In fact I would suggest that it would be either costly to buy or complicated to make.


Yes quite expensive,they come free with the bottles of sheep/cattle injections,then get thrown away,but you can buy them for £4.

 

[Tom Bick]

Thanks sherwood thats interesting I to think I will try and control the varoa without the need for OA it may be a futile thing to do and a lot more time and effort but I will only have a few hives by the end of this year


m100 point taken


Ian
I never meant to be condescending to you I would never refer to your hives as " poor damp hives" I realise that I am no way as experienced as your good self and have a lot to learn and if time permits perhaps I can visit you in the future

 

[ian]

Hi Tom

No problem, I did not think you were being off, it was just my sarcastic sense of humour

I would not pretend to know everything about Oxalic and I was shown how to use it by an Italian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That could be good or bad i suppose The point is that there is a huge amount of info about on the web from good sources. Start having a look or shoot Finman a mail and ask him to forward some he has collected over the years. Rather surprised he has not already fired off calling us all muppets for trying to re-invent the wheel.(he has been mysteriously quiet

Oxalic for me is not a treatment for the season gone(however you apply it) but a method for giving you a clean a start as possible for the season to come, thus keeping numbers as low as possible. Oxalic works as a back up only to early Autumn type treatments and cleans up any mites that are missed or those that are reared late in these long Autumns we get.

Regards Ian

 

[BKF Admin]

I had a quite word with him yesterday as I started to get a few complaints from members asking him to calm it down a little.

He just needs to be a little more diplomatic in his replies,I have known the british to go to war with a country for less

I can understand his posting style as he has been a member for a while but new members can take things the wrong way with the lost in translation posting.

 

[ian]

Hi

Personally rather like his style, he just says what a number of us are thinking

Regards Ian

 

[Hivemaker.]

Quite agree Ian,i like him,and his style as well.

 

[Tom Bick]

Thanks Ian

I suppose it has helped the beekeeper and in time other treatments will no doubt be adopted as things move on I for one have learnt a lot from this thread and better equipped for the year ahead.

 

[Finman]

Ie just needs to be a little more diplomatic in his replies,I have known the british to go to war with a country for less

I

Lets hope that national weathers become better and you can discuss about "I saw a bee flying". It is only way to get rid of never end story named Oxalic Acid.

"He laughs last who has strongest medication" >--<>--<>--<

 

[ian]

Hi

On the plus side having had a couple of Finnish girl friends I can say Finsky's sense of humour is quite advanced.

 

[Finman]

Hi

On the plus side having had a couple of Finnish girl friends I can say Finsky's sense of humour is quite advanced.

Take care that their names are not Tatjana and Olga (given in Ukraina)

 

[Hombre]

A bee can collect between 40 and 80mg of nectar per visit

I believe that Jurgen Tautz, in his book "The buzz about bees" estimates an average bee to weigh in at around 90mg with a 40mg nectar payload capacity.

Of course he wasn't talking about SuperBees. Just incase someone picks up the higher figure you mentioned and it becomes viral before we know it. Not far then from headlines like, "Bee hauls own weight in honey".

 

[m100]

I agree it sounds very high and to avoid any doubt about that higher figure I'd better quote my source which at the time was the only one I had immediately to hand.

Yates & Yates Beekeeping Study Notes Modules 1-4 Page 255


In the light of other references I think Yates & Yates is wrong.

For instance Winston (Biology of the Honey Bee) page 172 states 25-40mg

Seeley (Wisdom of the Hive) page 42 says 30mg

Tautz page 58 quotes as you say 40mg