Thermomite: a new weapon against varroa

[Erichalfbee]

If it proves to be so, it may be most effective in spring before supers go on, for hived swarms or splits, in late summer when boxes are reduced to one, in nucs at any time, for those who wish to avoid fumigation or chemical treatment, and for the majority of UK beekeepers who have few colonies.

Are you going to try it?

 

[Ian123]

L

If it proves to be so, it may be most effective in spring before supers go on, for hived swarms or splits, in late summer when boxes are reduced to one, in nucs at any time, for those who wish to avoid fumigation or chemical treatment, and for the majority of UK beekeepers who have few colonies.

looks a ball ache to me, anyone got an idea on cost. I suspect it’ll make a vape look cheap!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

maybe just wrap the hives in Thermogene

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Thermite for treating hives? 100% effective but no hive left

might still have the recipe tucked away somewhere. I remember doing my 'train the trainers' course at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham years ago and they had us making all sorts of goodies using items mostly bought in supermarkets on our bomb making module.

 

[JamezF]

might still have the recipe tucked away somewhere. I remember doing my 'train the trainers' course at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham years ago and they had us making all sorts of goodies using items mostly bought in supermarkets on our bomb making module.

Aluminium powder, iron oxide powder and a bit of magnesium strip for a fuse may well be all you need at a simple level. It might even be possible to do without the fuse if you can light it with a propane torch and don't mind getting a fierce tan in the process. I don't think thermite is really explosive though unless the powders are packed together well. It just burns very, very hot. Which is why it's quite handy for welding the rails of train tracks.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

Aluminium powder, iron oxide powder and a bit of magnesium strip for a fuse may well be all you need at a simple level. It might even be possible to do without the fuse if you can light it with a propane torch and don't mind getting a fierce tan in the process. I don't think thermite is really explosive though unless the powders are packed together well. It just burns very, very hot. Which is why it's quite handy for welding the rails of train tracks.

James

James, is there no end to your knowledge of the minutae of life?

 

[ericbeaumont]

Are you going to try it?

Probably not, but someone somewhere will act the guinea pig.
Reckon we'll get feedback on a demo at The Beekeeping Show at the end of next month, though a demo is not really comparable to variable field use.

 

[ericbeaumont]

an idea on cost

The shop is not open yet, so I guess they're gearing up.

 

[JamezF]

James, is there no end to your knowledge of the minutae of life?

Oh, certainly. I know almost nothing to do with football. In fact pretty much any sport that I don't take part in personally, so everything but swimming really. And I'm joyfully ignorant of almost everything shown on television in at least the last twenty years. "Classical" literature too -- the Brontes, George Eliot, Jane Austen, that sort of thing. I found them mind-numbingly tedious and gave up. And that's just the stuff that immediately springs to mind. There must be loads more.

But there's really no surprise about this one. I mean, what teenage boy with a bias towards the physical sciences can seriously claim they've never had an interest in explosives? One of the highlights of my Chemistry O Level was when a teacher managed to drop a lit spill into one of those big sweetshop jars of magnesium ribbon I've probably even still got a book on making your own fireworks somewhere on the bookshelves. Likely as not it will be with the MIT Guide to Lock Picking.

James

 

[Beesnaturally]

...what teenage boy with a bias towards the physical sciences can seriously claim they've never had an interest in explosives? One of the highlights of my Chemistry O Level was when a teacher managed to drop a lit spill into one of those big sweetshop jars of magnesium ribbon I've probably even still got a book on making your own fireworks somewhere on the bookshelves. Likely as not it will be with the MIT Guide to Lock Picking.

James

My daughter and her family have inherited the oak kitchen table that we had when I was a kid. It still has two nice hemispherical craters from my weed killer and sugar experimentation days.

Just a year or two later I fell in with some guys who refilled their own (12 bore) cartridges. We had the bright idea of filling a fire extinguisher pressure canister with cordite, popping a percussion cap in the end... and then had to think of a way to set it off. In the end, from a position of safety we fired birdshot at it. Boringly it didn't go off, though the percussion cap had been fired. We must have read that as a sign and never tried again.

One of the better explosion games is a firework rocket run down an overhead wire into a recently petrol-drenched (unlit!) bonfire.

There are more tales to tell, but I'd better stop there.

 

[Oculentum]

They are aiming for a launch date of March 2023, apparently.

 

[madasafish]

But there's really no surprise about this one. I mean, what teenage boy with a bias towards the physical sciences can seriously claim they've never had an interest in explosives? One of the highlights of my Chemistry O Level was when a teacher managed to drop a lit spill into one of those big sweetshop jars of magnesium ribbon I've probably even still got a book on making your own fireworks somewhere on the bookshelves. Likely as not it will be with the MIT Guide to Lock Picking.

James

As a teenager with an interest in chemistry and living in the country with a barn suitably far from the house to dampen the sound of what I was doing...I started making gunpowder in small quantities - about 250g at a time. I was very careful, took care to use wooden instruments to prevent sparks and carefully produced about 1 kg of very fine powder.

Produced a very large rocket over 1 meter long, suitably filled it with powder, carefully fused it so I had an escape period when ignition started and tested in the local fields when my parents were out.

It appears I made a fundamental error as the powder had not been packed firmly enough so when the fuse lit the gunpowder, instead of the rocket burning and rising into the air, all the powder ignited all at once. I was about 50 meters away, crouching down behind a friendly tree stump so was not hurt..BUT:
I was deafened for several hours after the explosion and the sound was heard a mile away in the nearby town.

I hastily mended the hole in the field, removed all evidence of a rocket - not much was left - and kept quiet. The local paper reported "a mysterious explosion" blamed on a naval plane from nearby Lossiemouth breaking the sound barrier.

I gave up chemistry after that and concentrated on physics....

 

[Ian123]

As a teenager with an interest in chemistry and living in the country with a barn suitably far from the house to dampen the sound of what I was doing...I started making gunpowder in small quantities - about 250g at a time. I was very careful, took care to use wooden instruments to prevent sparks and carefully produced about 1 kg of very fine powder.

Produced a very large rocket over 1 meter long, suitably filled it with powder, carefully fused it so I had an escape period when ignition started and tested in the local fields when my parents were out.

It appears I made a fundamental error as the powder had not been packed firmly enough so when the fuse lit the gunpowder, instead of the rocket burning and rising into the air, all the powder ignited all at once. I was about 50 meters away, crouching down behind a friendly tree stump so was not hurt..BUT:
I was deafened for several hours after the explosion and the sound was heard a mile away in the nearby town.

I hastily mended the hole in the field, removed all evidence of a rocket - not much was left - and kept quiet. The local paper reported "a mysterious explosion" blamed on a naval plane from nearby Lossiemouth breaking the sound barrier.

I gave up chemistry after that and concentrated on physics....

I used to take the old camera film containers and pack with powder from fireworks or cut open cartridges. You made a slit/cross in the lid and glued it down, you then cut a banger just below the length of the fuse and shoved it in the top. There then followed a process of wrapping with foil and duct tape until all but a few mm of the banger fuse was exposed. The resulting boom and cloud of shredded foil was impressive

 

[JamezF]

I rest my case

James

 

[B_north]

If heating the colony genuinely works I think I'd prefer something like an electric heating loop with a controller to measure the temperature and turn the heating off after the appropriate amount of time. Obviously that requires power, but carrying enough pouches to treat an entire apiary might not be that practical, so power might be required for that, too.

Thermal Treatments for Varroa - American Bee Journal

The Mite Mite killer. I have no idea on it's efficacy but it is out there.

A Test of Thermal Treatment for Varroa: Part 1 - Scientific Beekeeping

 

[pargyle]

I think there's a thing about explosives and teenage boys ... Me and a friend (again after chemistry lessons) buried a metal tube full of weed killer and sugar explosive in the far side of the school playing fields. The resultant explosion rattled the school windows, the bang was heard a mile away and the crater it left in the ground was very impressive ... we were made to fill it in and we spent days after school cutting the playing field grass as penance for the escapade. I think, in hindsight, we got off lightly.

 

[JamezF]

Thermal Treatments for Varroa - American Bee Journal

The Mite Mite killer. I have no idea on it's efficacy but it is out there.

A Test of Thermal Treatment for Varroa: Part 1 - Scientific Beekeeping

Also part 2 of the second one:

A Test of Thermal Treatment for Varroa: Part 2 - Scientific Beekeeping

James

 

[pargyle]

Thermal Treatments for Varroa - American Bee Journal

The Mite Mite killer. I have no idea on it's efficacy but it is out there.

A Test of Thermal Treatment for Varroa: Part 1 - Scientific Beekeeping

That's really interesting .. so the idea is that raising the temp of the brood nest to 42 degress for a period of 6 hours does not harm the bees but kills virtually all the varroa mites ?

 

[Sutty]

might still have the recipe tucked away somewhere. I remember doing my 'train the trainers' course at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham years ago and they had us making all sorts of goodies using items mostly bought in supermarkets on our bomb making module.

Ingredients are readily available online!
I've bought a few chemicals over the years (with good, peaceful, reasons), that I half expected to cause a knock on the door.

 

[JamezF]

That's really interesting .. so the idea is that raising the temp of the brood nest to 42 degress for a period of 6 hours does not harm the bees but kills virtually all the varroa mites ?

I think it's a fair bit more complex than that. Humidity appears to be a factor as well and perhaps the genetics of the bees too. The second part of the article is worth reading, certainly.

My overall impression is that a) far more research is required before it's possible to say what might constitute a genuinely efficacious thermal treatment across a range of conditions (assuming it's possible at all) and b) even if we can, it may be impractical to implement such a treatment successfully at reasonable expense.

My feeling is that with a "passive" heating system such as that in the original post, it will be difficult to maintain an appropriate temperature over the time required in hives of different types of construction and it may be that some users find it just doesn't work for them. An "active" system on the other hand would require power, which may be ok if you can provide a mains connection or have a portable generator, but with even a fairly heft car battery it will eat through them quite quickly and doesn't really lend itself to, say, treating a dozen colonies in a single apiary all at the same time.

I think the research is worth doing though, because there's always the possibility that a viable method for treatment could emerge.

James