oil and latic acid

[bobbb]

Have a burgess fogger going to mix the oil and lactic together. Scaired of mixig strengts danger of fire and to the bees. Any insight given my way will be apreciated

[Axtmann]

Bob forget the whole complicate unknown treatment. Put a little tray with Thymol in your hives and that’s it. As soon as a Varroa hatched she is dead, that’s even better than mixing all that stuff in a cord and adding some Thymol. Its all scrub the only working ingredient is Thymol. You’re from Kanada, send a note to the vaporizer company in your country and test it. As long as the bees have brood I will go for that.

[bobbb]

how much thymol do you use. I have thymol in the liquid form.what type of tray do you use. thanks for the advice

[Michael Bush]

You have the first problem of anything caustic in the fogger is going to corrode things. When they finally corrode through you may get a big bang. http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

The second problem is what amount of lactic acid is useful, what amount is toxic to the bees and is it really useful in the first place.

I'd stick with things that have been proven effective.

[Axtmann]

Bob you can’t use the liquid Thymol it is not high concentrated. I bought the Thymol crystals like oxalic acid crystals. Thymol crystals are little bit bigger and almost clear.

I have no idea how much to put in the hive, one tray hold the right amount a 9-frame colony need, and two trays for a bigger hive. I think without this tray, you need an electronik scale and at the end you need something anyway to put those crystals in. First I used plastic for the crystal but it melt the plastic and I wasted the Thymol what a mess in the hive.

The tray is made from wood with a hollow out for the exact amount and a screen, when filled up bees can’t remove the crystals. I filled the tray, close the screen and put the Thymol on top of a frame where the brood is NOT under the frames.

To hold back the bees from putting propolis on to the screen I used an old toothbrush with Vaseline and greased the screen a little bit.
In my opinion the Thymol will hold at least 8 or 10 weeks before it’s all evaporated. During this time it kills all hatching mites but the enter must be reduce to approx 5cm/2inch.

[Robert Brenchley]

If you want a simpler thymol treatment try Apiguard. The thing to be careful of is temperature; it needs to be 65F or greater, but not too high as if it evaporates too fast it can drive the bees out of the hive. Don't use it in hot midsummer weather.