What a sight I was with the respirator mask and full bee outfit but I figured I would need all my protective gear since this was my first time doing Oxalic acid treatment this way. In the past, I have soaked paper towels with glycerin and Oxalic and laid them over the bottom deep. But it's too late for that now since I have already have covered it for the winter.
It did seem to go smoothly once I had everything out by the hive. I did it all as instructed.
- Remove entrance reducer and mouse guard
- Add 1/2 tsp. Oxalic acid in wand
- connect one side of wand cable to battery
- slip wand into bottom board of hive
- connect other side of wand cable to battery
- set timer for 2 minutes 30 seconds
- Remove cable from battery and wait another 2 minutes
- Remove wand from hive and close it up again
- Wait 10 minutes
- Return entrance reducer and mouse guard (Note, I had to wait until bees calmed down before putting mouse guard back)
So it's done. One thing I wonder about is that my wand didn't sizzle when I put it into the bucket of water. Not sure if I got the amount of vapor I needed or not. I'll need to check on that with some folks.d
Update 12/4 - The first time failed. The wand didn't ever heat up so it was a wasted treatment.
The battery didn't have enough juice so I recharged it which took hours (and shouldn't have imo). Then I performed the entire treatment again today. It also failed.
It failed even after I watched the Oxalic heat up in the wand before inserting into the hive. But it must have heated only enough to melt the Oxalic but not enough to make it a vapor. Now the battery isn't charged enough to charge the fence so I ordered a new battery to pick up tomorrow. Hope no bear comes through tonight!
I'll take a few days before trying to do this again to the bees. It's such a disturbance each time.
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