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I must say I was surprised re his comment on sublimation as I’ve read the phD of the student who did the work for Lasi and pretty convincing stuff.
Equally Randy is a scientist and has the capability with his set up to do much bigger trials than our scientists do.
He had quite a debate, even a sparring, with Robert Pickard at the CABK evening. I’m impressed by both scientists and it was done in good humour and respectful. Best part of the honey show I felt.
:iagree:
 
Two scientists I also admire greatly. Do you know if this talk was one of the ones recorded for the NHS YouTube?
I doubt it. It was a Central Association social evening, with an impromptu conversation between Robert and Randy.
 
I must say I was surprised re his comment on sublimation as I’ve read the phD of the student who did the work for Lasi and pretty convincing stuff.
Equally Randy is a scientist and has the capability with his set up to do much bigger trials than our scientists do.
He had quite a debate, even a sparring, with Robert Pickard at the CABK evening. I’m impressed by both scientists and it was done in good humour and respectful. Best part of the honey show I felt.
I was at Randy's first talk. It was delivered like a high-speed train, but you felt that he was taking you with him. I do remember he mentioned that he administered OA by trickling, and seemed to be making the point that that was his way - as opposed to sublimation.
I know that contradicts what you said earlier, Elaine, so I could be wrong. Anyway, I didn't take away from this talk anything useful about how to vape OA.
 
I resisted buying an InstantVap at the show, nearly bought one…,can’t quite justify selling the Sublimox though
I'm just back from a super-quick super-easy session with my InstantVap, so this is not the reply you want to hear. :) :rolleyes:
 
Hefted all the hives and had a peek through the clear crown boards. Surprised to see such a big difference between the four colonies. Three were clustered but the fourth is packed with bees and still very active. We had a frost this morning but there were a few bees bringing in yellow (ivy?) pollen by lunch time

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Checked the hive’s, all looked good from the outside. A few bee’s flying and a lovely view of snow cover on the top of Blencathra.
 

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Had to visit a couple of hives that I was late treating for varroa because of poor weather, to remove the treatment strips. For a change it's a pleasant sunny day out of the wind and the bees were flying and as calm as you like, which made it a far easier and more relaxed job than I was expecting.

I'm not saying we've had a lot of rain, but I have to walk down a sloping pasture to get to the hives. There is standing water on the slope.

James
 
Had to visit a couple of hives that I was late treating for varroa because of poor weather, to remove the treatment strips. For a change it's a pleasant sunny day out of the wind and the bees were flying and as calm as you like, which made it a far easier and more relaxed job than I was expecting.

I'm not saying we've had a lot of rain, but I have to walk down a sloping pasture to get to the hives. There is standing water on the slope.

James
Is it at the top of the slope?
 
Just tried mine too. Cracking bit of kit!

Last night I discovered a letter relating to a change of address for an old share-holding[1]. I realised that I'd never updated the registrar with our new address and that since the company was bought out I should have new shares in the current owner and a load of dividends outstanding. I've made contact with the registrar to get all the details updated.

They've come back with a request for every address I've lived at in the last thirty-five years or thereabouts so they can attempt to find me in their records, but hopefully once we get it all sorted I will have some "free money" and I'm really tempted to spend it on an InstantVap, a pair of batteries and perhaps a battery strimmer that uses the same batteries.

James

[1] I'm actually trying to get rid of a large pile of paperwork accumulated over the last twenty-odd years by scanning anything that might still be important and then feeding the entire heap into the shredder and putting it on the compost.
 
I was at Randy's first talk. It was delivered like a high-speed train, but you felt that he was taking you with him. I do remember he mentioned that he administered OA by trickling, and seemed to be making the point that that was his way - as opposed to sublimation.
I know that contradicts what you said earlier, Elaine, so I could be wrong. Anyway, I didn't take away from this talk anything useful about how to vape OA.I had a chat with him after -
Thanks Archie, thats a shame he didn’t go into it further. I saw him at a couple of sessions on handling bees and over wintering mainly. Had a chat with him afterwards about Maqs and formic pro…but that’s another story!
 
Two scientists I also admire greatly. Do you know if this talk was one of the ones recorded for the NHS YouTube?
Hi, don’t think it was recorded - wasn’t last year. It’s a paid for separate evening do (proceeds for CABK, a worthwhile cause - promoting science for beekeepers) v informal, chatty in style.
Nice to catch up with a few beekeepers and meet new people.
 
Presumably then, if the Americans increased the vaped dose to 3g or so, he wouldn’t need to investigate whether the bees could survive a dumping of 15g in syrup, as vaping would then be seen as effective, no matter how “transient”.
It seems an odd thing to invest his time in, given the American “oxalic hesitancy” and the proven use of it here.
V good point. Have only tricked a colony once myself - a swarm. I wouldn’t like to do that in winter.
I bought a Sublimox 3 seasons ago, my Thornes cheapie fell apart after 4 seasons.
 
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Just tried mine too. Cracking bit of kit!
Were they discounted at the Honey Show? I've been thinking about getting one but haven't been able to justify the cost.

The gasvap works ok but everyone is saying these are a game changer. Are they really worth the money or just for people with 50+ hives?
Or deep pockets?!😄
 
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