Oxalic Acid.

[Jon]

We did our Oxalic distribution at our monthly meeting tonight.
Over 6 litres of 3.2% solution distributed at a cost of £1 per 3 colonies.

[Jon]

I treated 11 colonies at our association apiary site with Oxalic this afternoon, mostly nucs which had on averaqe about 3 seams of bees which should be enough to get them through the winter.
There were a couple of decent colonies with 6 or 7 well filled seams of bees.

[fatshark]

When I am treating an apiary I bring along a flask of hot water. I stand the plastic bottle with the Oxalic in a flora tub and fill it up with hot water to keep the Oxalic at about 25-30c.
Treatment usually takes place on a day where the temperature is near zero and the bees are in a cluster so you don't want to be tipping 40ml of freezing cold liquid into the cluster.

I was shopping for a few bottles of WaggleDance in Morrisons this evening and noticed they had cheap vacuum flasks. Rather than doing what Jon suggests - which is exactly what I've done in previous years, together with the inevitable spills - I'm going to pre-warm the OA and keep it in the flask as I go round the apiaries. The flask has a convenient pouring spout (so easy to top up the Trickle bottle) and is bright red ... with large lettering OA ONLY!!! on it to avoid any confusion later in the year !

[Neils]

Good idea fatshark

[fatshark]

I agree, though I say so myself. The WaggleDance honey beer was a stroke of genius

[gavin]

Definitely a stroke of genius.

As for warming the oxalic, does it really matter? I keep a couple of wee plastic bottles of the stuff in a trouser pocket to keep the worst of the chill off it, but never go to any bother to make it warm. The cluster is going to be fairly cool anyway, and the volume is small so it will quickly convert to cluster temp without chilling a lot of bees. I'd have thought.

[Jon]

And would you drink your red wine chilled just because it will be up to body temperature by the time it hits your stomach!!

[gavin]

Just think of the oxalic acid as a nice glass of Chardonnay and you'll be fine.

Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk

[Jimbo]

Did 4 colonies the other day with OA. Looked better than I thought. The weakest had 3 seams of bees and the others 5 to 6 seams so should make it through the winter without loses but then I do live in the West!

[gavin]

Did 4 colonies the other day with OA. Looked better than I thought. The weakest had 3 seams of bees and the others 5 to 6 seams so should make it through the winter without loses but then I do live in the West!

I did mine today. All eight alive and some surprisingly prosperous given the predictions of heavy losses from some folk I respect. Three had 10-11 seams of bees, a remarkable strength for my apiary anyway. Here's a tenner:



Also another strong at 8.5 seams, and only one of the eight currently looks vulnerable as it is on just two frames. That one had a near-death experience with Varroa before I took charge of it late in the summer, swapping it for a healthy nuc returned to the beginner with the Varroa problem.

That's the oxalic treatment finished for me.