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Crofter, I have been following this thread with great interest and was wondering if you could describe or show a picture of the stainless resistor wire that you used, it sounds like the answer to the vaporizer getting too hot. By the way your design is looking great so far and I look forward to seeing what all you guys come up with.
According to what I have been reading, OA administered as a trickle can have a suppressing efect on brood rearing if used more than once. This is because if the OA is administered as a trickle the bees consume it, add it to their food stores, and feed it to their larvae.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Y
If it's administered as a vapor the bees consuming it is less of an issue and the same research indicated it can be administered 4 times a week apart with no measureable effect on brood raising.
It is just a piece of stainless steel wire about .040" dia. put in series in the feed wire. I cut it longer and just slide the clamp along until I get the resistance I need. It has much higher resistance than copper. It gets quite hot to the touch. I now have a piece about 5" long in the circuit and seems about right.Quote:
Originally Posted by WWW
I think my bowl would be better to have been made of aluminum than stainless as heat conductivity is much better so the bowl heats evenly. There is a bit of a tendency to boil up and crust that gets hung up on the sides of the bowl that are cooler, then the clock ticks till the bowl gets hotter and the heat runs up the sides to melt down the hung up oxalic. Molten oxalic crystals are not very fluid and I suspect that if you heat them to the point where they are, you may be overheating and getting breakdown into less desirable gasses but that is conjecture. What I have will work but the time taken is close to 4 minutes before all the smoke has settled. Some of the patent ones claim 2 minutes which would be a concern if you were doing multiple hives.
I am interested in seeing how some of the others turn out. I am getting the sense that there is not a whole lot of excess heat to waste when working with one glo plug.
I hate to pull this discussion a different direction but, has anyone considered a hot glue gun as a heat source? They are cheap and readily available.
I bought one from them, it works just fine and a nice piece of work that I did not have to engineer and make...Quote:
Originally Posted by beeman2009
While we are brainstorming, I had thought of a small, battery powered soldering iron too.....? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by BigGun
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lburou
I actually saw a picture of one just like that. It was 110 though. It was a copper end cap wired to the iron. Used copper wire thru holes drilled in the bottom. Both the glue gun or soldering iron would be easy to power with a small inverter from a vehicle even with an extension cord.
Good idea on the inverter. I've put them on several vehicles but didn't think about one to run a vaporizer. When I get a little cash saved up I'm going to put an inverter on my truck so I will always have a power source for doing cutouts, running saws, vacs, ect...Quote:
Originally Posted by BigGun
Thanks for the resistor info crofter, you have enlightened me in an area that I have had little experience in, I will have to do some experimenting soon.
I have seen a YouTube of a German man using a charcoal disc and an aluminum cup to vaporize Oxalic Acid in the empty (Feeder) Box on top of the Brood Chamber. He lights the Disc, Waits until it whitens, places what looks like a teaspoon of OA in the cup and sets it right on the hot charcoal disc. He then closes the top and walks away. I assume it works. Anyone have any ideas about this method??
Could you supply a link?
I Don't read or write German, but a picture says.........http://youtu.be/y4rm5pDvJTo, Seems pretty simple although unscientific. I gotta think it works or this guy wouldn't be doing it.
That is keeping it pretty simple. Here is an example of where you can get the charcoal.
http://www.hookahcompany.com/all_hoo...oal_33_ctg.htm
They are used for Hookas and should not be that difficult to find.
The aluminum cups. Here is the photos from a google search for aluminum dish.
https://www.google.com/search?q=alum...w=1024&bih=578
One concern that comes to mind is the effect of charcoal being burned in the hive. But at the same time these charcoals are made to smoke. Definitely answers a lot of other problems such as the ability to treat multiple hives at once and portability.
By the way while shopping for the coal keep in mind that they do make a small pair of tongs for handling the hot charcoal. might be handy to have a pair rather than bare fingers to move cups etc. if you dropped a coal for any reason etc.
Excellent the charcoal method as it applies the KISS principle. Thanks
You could probably use the stuff that caterers use to warm trays. It comes in a can, they light it in the can and it burns for hours. Someone could probably figure out how much is needed to provide the necessary heat, dish it onto something, light it and place it in the hive. Use just the amount needed to get the job done.