Help Oxalic Acid.

[nemphlar]

Masks like SCOTT PRO2 with A1B1E1 filters are designed for organic acids
You might use something cheaper but at about £20 it is worth it if you are considering bent tubes and blowlamp madness

Working back to the last sub zero days I did mine today as well. I use the open 15 mm copper tubes and blowtorch although I did spend on a good face mask and eye protection.
A quick brush of the clearer board, set this aside and a 2 inch eke in place with a glass cover. The pipe through the side of the eke, heat for minute, the gas solidifies quite quickly after it cools on entering the top of the hive and falls onto bees and frames as fine powder, doesn't appear to be a lot escaping.
I do wash the kit after along with my woolly hat and veil and coverall just in case standing to windward has not been enough. Although keeping the blow torch on in today's gale was more of an issue
They don't seem overly disturbed by the process

[gavin]

Trickled mine and the association's today. One apiary (the one mostly with full colonies that were at the heather) has colonies that are strong but light. The others are fine and have better levels of stores. More in the blog.

[Daveoneflowers]

Masks like SCOTT PRO2 with A1B1E1 filters are designed for organic acids
You might use something cheaper but at about £20 it is worth it if you are considering bent tubes and blowlamp madness

Working back to the last sub zero days I did mine today as well. I use the open 15 mm copper tubes and blowtorch although I did spend on a good face mask and eye protection.
A quick brush of the clearer board, set this aside and a 2 inch eke in place with a glass cover. The pipe through the side of the eke, heat for minute, the gas solidifies quite quickly after it cools on entering the top of the hive and falls onto bees and frames as fine powder, doesn't appear to be a lot escaping.
I do wash the kit after along with my woolly hat and veil and coverall just in case standing to windward has not been enough. Although keeping the blow torch on in today's gale was more of an issue
They don't seem overly disturbed by the process

Sound like its the way I would do it, on the wing. Cheers

[The Drone Ranger]

DR, am I reading the graph right, hive 22 had a pre-oxalic natural drop of 23 a day, and after one treatment, a drop of 298? And hive 23, 3 natural drop, and a whopping 908 after treatment? If so, since most of my hives are dropping between 0-4 a day, it will definitely be worth treating to get that amount of mites out of the hive ready for next year. Thing is, i still have brood in some hives, judging by biscuit chewings on the insert.

Yes Beejazz
Natural drop is a good guide but not reliable I think
I treat twice because where would those 298 mites have been if the queen was to lay a patch of a couple of hundred cells

Hi Nemphlar
I'm a bit cowardly so wouldn't chance my luck with a blowtorch
Good instructions though

[Pete L]

Must say though that I did give the subject a second glance the other week when a UKbeek posted a video of a (Italian?) vaporizer which he uses, on Beesource.

That would be me......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bby6r1qWxys

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi beejazz
I meant to say the inserts were cleaned on the 16th Nov late in the day
The natural drop represents 4 days ie the day of treatment was the 20th Nov
so you would be dividing the natural drop by 4
The next count is 1st Dec some dropped 900 mites some lots less
then about a week later 9th Dec they got checked again
Tomorrow I will count the mite drop and see how it's going
I'm looking at it the infestation level in the apiary with the stack bar

Counting hundreds of mites means marking off squares on the board but also no wind so not every day is suitable

[gavin]

That would be me......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bby6r1qWxys

Thanks Pete. You can see that the face mask is very necessary if you don't wish to dose yourself with the stuff. What a palaver though. Step one, get a vehicle right up to your beehives - not possible in around half of all the apiaries I've visited.

[prakel]

That would be me......

....Step one, get a vehicle right up to your beehives - not possible in around half of all the apiaries I've visited.

There's some great advice regarding this problem on the 'Honey Paw' equipment website

As a rule, during snowless periods you should be able to park your car that close that you must be careful not to knock over the closest hive.
If you need handcarts you have done something wrong.

...Something ELSE that I've done wrong.

[Pete L]

Thanks Pete. You can see that the face mask is very necessary if you don't wish to dose yourself with the stuff. What a palaver though. Step one, get a vehicle right up to your beehives - not possible in around half of all the apiaries I've visited.

Done over 600 treatments with this equipment, 30 seconds per hive, continuous (no waiting for cooling between hives) multiple treatments can be used, three or even four, five to seven days apart if brood present..(three treatments seven days apart is the recommended dosage, but i find five days more efficient due to the varroa life cycle and phoretic stage) no harm or upset to the bees or brood observed in any way, and of course no opening of hives, we use a small lightweight generator and long extension lead to power the device, so no need to get vehicle right up to beehives, although most of our hives are placed for easy vehicle access for ease when loading/moving/de-supering them, but as i said, we use a generator anyway. The equipment is only supplied for 240v.

The equipment is also expensive, certainly not worth buying it for treatment of half a dozen colonies, but there are of course cheaper passive evaporators for that, i would certainly not go down the bent copper pipe and blowtorch route, no accurate control of heat.

[prakel]

Looks like a first class piece of kit -not going to rush into anything yet because trickling seems to be holding ground for us on our small quantity of colonies, but it has made me think about the possibility in a way that I hadn't done previously.