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Oxalic acid vaporizer results....hmmmm

2K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  GLOCK 
#1 ·
I vaporized all 30 hives on Saturday morning. Was surprised at the results.

Notes:
26 of 30 converted to 4.9 cell size.
All have screen bottom boards
22 have 2013 queens, of which 7 were placed VSH purchased queens and 15 were newly raised open mated queens. 8 were 2012 or 2011 queens in untreated hives.

I did a 48 hour check after OA vaporizing all 30. Very few mites on any boards. Maybe 10 mites at the most of one board. Makes me wonder about how well OA works because I know a couple of hives that are still 5.4 cell size haven't been treated in a couple of years.

Just curious if anyone else that has used an OA vaporizer has seen this poor of result.
 
#3 ·
Yes I was interested but there is no possibility to know if the OA did anything, or not. The only assumption seems to be that the 5.4 hives should have more mites than the 4.9. But not everybody finds that and in fact some studies have found more mites in 4.9 than in 5.4. But that's an aside, the main problem being that with no before tests, a judgement cannot be made.

To your other question, yes. When I have used OA vapour it's killed lots of mites. We have no broodless period here though so several repeat applications are needed, which does hike up the labour involved.
 
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