Help Oxalic Acid.

[drumgerry]

Who said anything about buying solution?! Don't most of us who trickle make it up ourselves? A set of digital scales already purchased for kitchen/home brewing and bob's your proverbial. And you've not convinced me that Varrox or all that DIY shenanigans is cheaper and it's certainly not easier than my 4 year old plastic syringe. As to disturbance again not convinced - a minute or less and using lukewarm solution and the bees don't stir from their cluster unless the air temp is warm as it was when I did it this new year. Even then there were only a couple of fliers. Not seeing the harm generated by your ingestion theory either. So again as far as I'm concerned oxalic by trickle or sublimation is equally valid. Either way we're inflicting a dose of acid on the bees.

[Pete L]

Who said anything about buying solution?! Don't most of us who trickle make it up ourselves? A set of digital scales already purchased for kitchen/home brewing and bob's your proverbial. And you've not convinced me that Varrox or all that DIY shenanigans is cheaper and it's certainly not easier than my 4 year old plastic syringe.

I used to be one of the biggest proponents of trickling oxalic as a treatment, and wrote the recipe on various places back when the use of oxalic was rather frowned on by many, used over 840 doses and then changed my views on it, and i never bought any ready up made solution, but it is obviously an easy way for some. Never used an ordinary syringe, used the multi dose type which i get on the farm, this with a pipe connected to a two L plastic milk bottle containing the solution, but either way it does the same job, just faster when treating lots of colonies. Cost as far as i am concerned is insignificant and does not really come into it, sublimation/trickling, when compared to the other costs like several tonnes of fondant and sugar, 50 or 60 tonnes of cedar, thousands of sheets of wax...etc, and that against the sale of bees,queens, tonnes of honey....the treatment costs are just miniscule, almost zilch really.

[mbc]

No need to buy Varrox kit - it's easy enough to make your own gear. I'm currently making another one for a friend - I use a 50 watt soldering iron element attached to a large brass washer - the apparatus itself is contained inside a wooden box which has a computer fan attached to it's removable top and an exit hole for the vapour to exit at it's bottom. The box is then simply placed over any hole in your crown board. They cost about a fiver to make. Using a low thermal mass washer means that the heating-up time is minimal, and the cooling-down time is equally minimal, thus speeding up the operation. Not that speed is a major issue for me - thoroughness is far more important.

Sounds good, any chance of pictures or plans ?
I was impressed with the equipment that PeteL uses, but balked at the price, as I'm only thinking about dosing the odd swarm and perhaps having another tool in the locker for firefighting problems as they become apparent in the season.

[Little_John]

Who said anything about buying solution?! Don't most of us who trickle make it up ourselves?

Well, I've never trickled so can't comment - but bee forums often have people asking about use-by dates and HMF/safety issues and so forth. The advice they always get is "chuck it away and buy new". And as it's sold by nearly all beekeeping suppliers ... that suggests somebody's buying it !

[clip] So again as far as I'm concerned oxalic by trickle or sublimation is equally valid.

Although they both use the same acid, they are not similar procedures at all.

Think: if you were given a bottle of lotion - clearly marked "for external use only" - to apply on your hair to eradicate a bad case of scabies, would you proceed to dilute it with sugar water, take a bloody great swig of it, then sprinkle a little of it on your hair and hope for the best - or would you rub it all into your hair instead, as per the label's instructions ?

Either way we're inflicting a dose of acid on the bees.

No, we're not - and that's the whole point I'm trying to convey. I do not treat bees for ANYTHING, and haven't done so since I first started back in '59. If they should die from disease, then that's an appropriate end for a genetically weak colony, or perhaps as a result of unsuitable housing. If it should be the latter, then I must change some aspect of what I'm doing, or learn to live with the consequences. That may sound a hard approach to have adopted perhaps, but no different from that of the old skep beekeepers who kept bees for many hundreds of years without the use of any 'medicines'.

I repeat - I do NOT treat bees. I only treat the mites, as they are not a 'bee disease', but a parasite. Sure, the bees remain 'in situ' when the mites are being subjected to their fatal treatment, but any take-up of the oxalic acid by the bees is both minimal and purely accidental, and as small amounts are naturally present in honey, any very small amounts added to it via open cells are undetectable.

At the risk of offending anyone, which I assure you is NOT my intention, I would suggest that the technique of trickling OA may actually be part of the ongoing problem with Varroa, rather than part of it's solution, for trickling MUST always be hit-and-miss, with bees at the top of the inter-comb space getting wet, but some of those below staying dry. Thus, some bees are not being treated, with some mites surviving to then reproduce their species.

To my mind, the only effective way to treat with OA solution would be to remove each frame in turn and spray both sides of the comb - only then could you be certain that the vast majority of bees have been brought into contact with the solution. Such a method would then certainly be fairly comparable in efficiency with that of sublimation/vapourisation, but the time taken to administer by spray would then be what - 20x longer, at least ?

MBC: Sounds good, any chance of pictures or plans ?

Sure, I'll cobble something together - I've got some pics (somewhere ...) of an early prototype during construction. I think your approach - to have such kit handy in case of an outbreak - is very sound. Of course 3 doses, a week apart, are required during the season, but I suspect you already knew that ...

[drumgerry]

Not looking to get into an argument here. Generally it's not how we do things around here. You've pitted your opinion against mine and who's to say which is right. Both equally valid so not much point in going round the houses.

[Rosie]

For what it's worth I know of nobody who buys ready-mixed oxalic acid solution although some obviously do otherwise the traders would not stock it. The problem with mixing your own is the resolution and accuracy of the scales. My wife's kitchen scales have a resolution of 5 grammes and an unknown accuracy. My own honey scales are retail approved and have a resolution of 2 grammes. Hence I use my honey scales but I would not attempt to mix less than a kilo and often 2 kilos so that I can be confident of my proportions. Locals with only a couple of hives usually cadge my spare solution or that of other beekeepers. None of us would keep it for the next season. The biggest cost to me is the sugar. In fact I just have enough crystals left for one more year after about 8 years of treatment with a pack that cost me £7 at the time. I only use about 12 or 15 mls of mixture per colony though.

Claiming that applying oxalic is a varroa treatment and not a bee treatment seems a cop-out to me. The targetting might be reasonable but in essence the only difference between treating with oxalic acid and, say, antibiotics for foulbrood, is the size of the pathogen. Mites are a bit bigger than bacteria. I think all treatments should be kept to a minimum which, in many cases, means no treatment at all. 3 treatments a week apart would not suit my style of beekeeping at all.

[drumgerry]

Re accuracy of scales I have a £20-ish set of digital scales and when I first got them I measured them with known weights and they were pretty much spot on. Happy to use them for oxalic solution making and I'm making usually around a litre at a time. I certainly would never keep the solution after use and can't imagine anyone doing so.

[Jon]

I have a digital scale I bought new on ebay for under a tenner which is accurate to 1/10 gramme.
It weighs up to 300g.
Anytime I need some oxalic solution I make it up fresh in the ratio of 7.5g Oxalic, 100ml water 100g sugar.
It takes about 5 minutes each time.
You can check the accuracy with a 2p piece which weighs 7g.

[drumgerry]

What he said

[Little_John]

Ok - while I'm searching for my old pics, here's a diagram to be getting on with.

http://i57.tinypic.com/14l6duh.png

Although brazing would be best, JB Weld is good enough - as it's rated for 260 deg C continuous, or 300 intermittent.

The brass washer is supported by steel wires run to the box sides, and which also support the deflector. The OA is held in one of those aluminium containers which normally hold night-lite candles, so by using several of those, multiple doses can be measured at home - which is one less job to do on site.

I think that's about it.

I'm sure an even simpler device could be designed, using a 12v soldering iron to which a copper plumbing 'end-cap' is bonded, again using JB Weld. Drill a hole in the side of the box to take the soldering iron handle, which would then be a self-supporting platform. The deflector could then be attached to the removeable lid with steel wires. You'd then fill the end-cap directly with OA, as with the Varrox.

You'd need to ensure that the soldering iron would never exceed 300 C (260 C for safety) - this could be done with a simple rheostat and a £4 Chinese temperature meter.