# CO2 for Wax Moth Fumigation



## IAmTheWaterbug (Jun 4, 2014)

Awesome! Thanks for the write up. 

But why would the CO2 concentration dwindle over time if there is no absolute pressure differential and CO2 is heavier than air?

Is it diffusion due to differential partial pressures? High school chemistry was a looooong time ago for me


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Phoebee said:


> *Is it dangerous to people? *


*

It sure is. So much so that if you give someone too much oxygen you will kill them and it is related to the co2 not the oxygen.

So why can't you kill mites with soda pop? I think you can but you need a smart guy to figure out how to do it.*


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> But why would the CO2 concentration dwindle over time if there is no absolute pressure differential and CO2 is heavier than air?
> 
> Is it diffusion due to differential partial pressures? High school chemistry was a looooong time ago for me


Injecting CO2 slowly at the bottom of the container, say, under a plate full of holes, would slow gross mixing, but not stop diffusion. Yes, CO2 is heavier than air at 44 grams per mole, and the gas straight from the cylinder will be somewhat colder than ambient, but the molecules still move at meters per second. Mixing is inevitable, and faster than you would guess.

Ever open a bottle of perfume and notice how fast you can smell it across a room? I experienced a test with butyric acid once ... the professor said not to open the vial, but he knew somebody in a class of 100 students would. We smelled it throughout a large lecture hall in seconds. That's a molecule with twice the molecular weight of CO2.

Is diffusion due to differential partial pressure? Well, yeah, but I prefer to get to the fundamentals: temperature, molecular velocity (a function of molecular weight and temperature), mean free path, and statistics. Thinking of it on that level tells you that any hope of the gas not mixing is wishful thinking. It will find any hole offered and get out. The people doing the grain storage were worried about a square centimeter hole in a large silo. My experiment with a plastic bag around a deep full of frames was a miserable failure ... moths flew up in my face when I opened it, because rate of diffusion in the poorly sealed system defeated me.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I've always thought the easy way to do this is to stack boxes, wrap with plastic wrap, and put some dry ice on the top and cover it.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Acebird said:


> So why can't you kill mites with soda pop? I think you can but you need a smart guy to figure out how to do it.


Well.... I'd mix a teaspoon of BT aizawai into 2 liters of seltzer and spray that on the combs. 

Glad to accommodate you Ace!


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## Maddy (Jan 20, 2014)

Acebird said:


> It sure is. So much so that if you give someone too much oxygen you will kill them and it is related to the co2 not the oxygen.
> 
> So why can't you kill mites with soda pop? I think you can but you need a smart guy to figure out how to do it.


Or a smart GAL...:no::lpf:
~M


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Sorry Maddy I never say it right ... a smart person.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

deknow said:


> I've always thought the easy way to do this is to stack boxes, wrap with plastic wrap, and put some dry ice on the top and cover it.


If well enough sealed, around a pound of dry ice per deep ought to do the trick.

I'm sitting here wondering if I should pull the trigger and buy a $229 development kit for a new gizmo that measures 5-100% CO2 levels, or maybe the Hamamatsu $50 chip that does this with IR but I'd have to develop an instrument around it. Most CO2 meters are for PPM levels to protect humans from unhealthy concentrations. I'm looking for lethal against tough bugs. I think I need the gizmo in order to test the containers and make sure the recommended method actually holds the concentration long enough. 

Hopefully, end users won't need the instrument if they can be given a sealing procedure that works dependably for long enough to assure a kill.

The $229 would be enough to buy a small chest freezer that I could dedicate to freezing frames, so it is not cost effective for me or most small users. But it is a gadget and I love gadgets. Maybe I could get some mileage from it in my consulting work.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Phoebee said:


> I'm sitting here wondering if I should pull the trigger and buy a $229 development kit for a new gizmo that measures 5-100% CO2 levels, or maybe the Hamamatsu $50 chip that does this with IR but I'd have to develop an instrument around it.


Phoebee, I don't want to throw my fellow engineer under the bus but if you are looking for instrumentation do not try to build it yourself. What you want is out there whether you can afford it or not. You yourself can monkey around and prove to yourself whether you are on the right tract but if you want credibility then buy what you need. At some point you will have to prove to corporate your discoveries. It ain't going to happen with a home built instrument.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Acebird, I've gotten to that time in my life when I realize my time is worth something. Thinking about building a tube with a fixed optical path, rigging a glowbar in one end, and brassboarding up a 2-axis multiplier to get the ratio of the two channels makes the $229 dev kit look pretty cheap.

Where it gets tempting is the prospect of building a lower-cost instrument commercially. But I think that is a long shot, and I'd want another instrument to compare the performance to anyway.

The downside of the $229 instrument is that I already told my wife a freezer would be cheaper, and she'd spot the charge and ding me for it if I bought it. My only justification for it would be to declare that I can use it as a consulting tool.

Here's hoping that the instrument is not really needed to do the CO2 fumigation properly.

This coming year I'm going to check the SARE grant system and see if I can wrangle a little funding for this project. For that, an instrument to prove I can hold the gas concentration would give essential data to support the technique.


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## westtnbeekeeper (Oct 26, 2015)

Hmmm...

I have a lot of CO2 available... Large siphon type CO2 bottle. (The airgas or nexair type) Haven't swapped it out in years but the last time I did it cost 26 dollars and change. I had it for filling paint ball tanks. I turned my right ankle 180 degrees backwards and sat down on it so I don't play any more paintball. As mentioned above, CO2 is also used in fountain drink and draft beer systems. Pretty sure I can use the paintball tank set-up to flood a container of some sort. Thinking about locating a plastic drum with a removable lid. I don't suppose it would have to be plastic but I thought it would be a more sanitary option. Easier to rinse and keep clean but if it is just wax and propolis from frames piled in it I don't think it would be such a big deal.

Currently I just freeze the frames as many as will fit in the open freezer space that I have. (8 or 9 at a time).


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Update.

I got back up to the apiary this week and opened that test bin this morning to examine the results. Call it a week and a half, with an initial CO2 concentration that must have been 95-99% and an unknown rate of dilution due to small leaks.

The mortality of the wax moth larvae appears to have been total, as expected. The larvae I had put in a jar cap were still there, dead and discolored. I saw no evidence that any pupae had emerged as adult moths, unlike the previous test in a plastic bag. After airing the bin out, I put the lid back on with no additional CO2, to be sure I don't have moths emerge later.

I can't be absolutely sure that temperature did not play a role, as we had freezing temperatures on a few nights during that period. The garage workshop in which the test was done hit 32 F. But I will say it gives me confidence to proceed. I'll store all my frames this way this winter.

I pulled out the two relatively clean harvested honey frames and offered them to the bees today after the sun finally came out and they started flying. The frames were being cleaned all afternoon, so I can say with confidence that the bees don't mind carbonated honey.

A moth made the mistake of entering the cabin last night when I was in a mood to experiment. It found itself in a bottle, with CO2 coming in. The moth was motionless on its back in under a minute, and failed to regain consciousness when the bottle was aired out today.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Update. 

Last weekend I took down the two harvested honey frames I'd left out for the bees to finish cleaning. After that long, a few other insects had found the frames. There were some ants and small gnats on the comb.

I put those in one of my bins, wrapped the lid with stretch wrap, and gave them a quick shot, about a minute. The gnats fell first, and the ants got woozy and dropped shortly thereafter. I did not try for high concentration as the bottle is probably getting a bit low due to the earlier overuse. Two days later I noticed a couple of ants moving, although a hundred or so were motionless on the bottom, along with the gnats. Also lying on the bottom was a rather large wax moth larvae that apparently fell from one of these frames. It looked dead. The frames had previously been stored with wax-moth-infested frames so my guess is it was hiding there all along. I gave the box another fairly short burst of a minute or two and the last couple of moving ants dropped quickly.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

If you put the same frame in the freezer for two days everything you talked about would be dead so why complicate things, if you are into killing everything. After my fall extracting I had two plastic frames that were deeps cut down to fit into medium boxes that did not do well in my extractor. I was done with them so I put them out in the yard away from the bees where they would be in the elements. After a week the honey was all gone and I threw them in the dumpster. The only way I would consider using CO2 is if I wanted to kill a hive.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Because the freezer is full of frozen vegetables and venison and is 130 miles away from the apiary. And I'm a nut. 

Mainly I'm looking for an option for the special cases where a freezer is not practical, and I'll be the first to admit that's a rare condition.

I expect to use it myself to store honey frames prior to extraction. This kills any pests without encouraging the honey to crystallize as _might_ happen in a freezer.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

The oldtimers would say that if the warehouse hit freezing, there would be very few wax moth issues in the spring. They would also say stop putting PDCB on when the temps dropped below 55 F.

Be sure that CO2 and not the temps did your critters in.

Crazy Roland


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Roland said:


> The oldtimers would say that if the warehouse hit freezing, there would be very few wax moth issues in the spring. They would also say stop putting PDCB on when the temps dropped below 55 F.
> 
> Be sure that CO2 and not the temps did your critters in.
> 
> Crazy Roland


What is PDCB, or can it be spelled out in polite company?

Yeah, there is a definite possibility that cold temps in the shop could have put the nail in the coffin, and I think I admitted that above. But for sure the CO2 is knocking them down (I can watch them stop moving and drop in a couple of minutes), and lab studies have verified that it is deadly to all life stages of moths. So my job if I'm to turn this into a legit science project (and take a grant from SARE or someone like them to do it) will be to come up with a reliable method of holding the CO2 levels up long enough to assure a kill.

What grossed us out was that our meager honey harvest got messed up in storage for a couple of months. One frame, one that had a different honey in it that we wanted to sample, was trashed. The two others had disgusting little flecks on them that were almost certainly wax moth larvae poop. So there went Christmas gifts for the family this year.

I'm sure this could be solved with better attention to storage, but then I'd cheat myself out of a fun science project, and one that may be useful to a few people. This has been looked into as serious research, and I'm just taking the step of trying to find an effective and economical way to put it in practice. http://www.researchgate.net/publica..._carbon_dioxide_enriched_modified_atmospheres


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## Maddy (Jan 20, 2014)

Would dry ice possibly combine CO2 and the cold temperatures, maybe providing a "double whammy?"

~m


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I think the amount of dry ice needed to produce the effect is so small that it would just cool the setup a few degrees, so the temperature alone would only make a small difference, but it would make a little.

When my problem occurred was early summer (when I pulled the frames) to autumn (when we finally got a chance to extract), which turns out to be prime wax moth season. Listening around the forum, it sound to me like a lot of people pull honey off right after a spring flow but don't extract until later.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Para Di-Cloro Benzene.

Hmmm..... I'm from Milwaukee, and I wonder where we could find a cheap source of CO2???? I will have to work on that, 'cuz I can't focus right now from the "plip, plip plip" of the mead.

Crazy Roland


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## StoneLion (Jul 12, 2014)

I have a box of comb that i pulled off a colony a couple of weeks ago that has begun to develop a wax moth problem. I am a brewer so I have a CO2 bottle sitting in the next room. I think I will try this sometime in the next few days. I have been looking for something like this, freezer space is a scarce commodity for me.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Paradichlorobenzine, PDCB or moth balls for short, may still be available in other countries. Any European, South American, African, Aussie, or Asian beekeepers have a supply link?

I like the dry ice idea. An old 'fridge with a stack of frames and a block of dry ice should set them to zero, but then you have to keep the adult wax moths out until Spring.

What's your procedure, Roland?


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

My beek buddy in the next county stacks 8 or 10, packing tapes the seams,puts a pound or 2 block of dry ice on an inner cover, adds a box with a plywood side. Taped up and stored outside in the cold, they are always perfect in spring. He gets dry ice at the Safeway grocery.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Drive to Dadant's in Watertown, Wis. Buy a pail of PDCB. Follow the label.

Crazy Roland


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Roland, if I'd done this with the unextracted honey frames the wax moths pooped on this year, I'd have honey that tastes like moth balls.

My goal is to have honey that tastes like honey, with no chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons or toxin-producing bacteria on it. 

There was a post a couple of days back regarding small versus large wax moths. The poster noted that the large wax moth ignores honey frames and goes for brood frames, but the small wax moth will damage honey frames where the comb has never had brood. I did not bother to identify the moths that took out one of my honey frames, but at this point I'm guessing small wax moths. The other two frames were undamaged, but were covered with disgusting little brown flecks which I'm guessing came from back ends of the larvae.

With any luck, next spring we'll actually get a flow and will have more than this year's dribble of honey. We don't intend to let the wax moths get it.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Phoebee - No, you would not have PDCB tainted honey because ,to the best of my knowledge, the label clearly says FOR STORAGE OF EMPTY COMB. There is no reason to store combs of honey. It should be promptly extracted after removal from the hives. In the summer, the empties go back out. In fall, it is hopefully below 55 deg F., and no PDCB is needed. In the spring, it is not needed because the warehouse froze, and the supers are out out before it warm enough for problems. We rarely use PDCB, but it can be used according to label without problems.

Crazy Roland


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Of course there are reasons to store honey rather than extract it. Hoping you get more later so it is worth messing up the extractor comes to mind. Having other projects that demand your time (I got a wife, see?). Waiting until your friends harvest so you can have a club extraction party. Or thinking you may need to put some back on for winter.

Keep in mind, we live in the mid-Atlantic, not up on a glacier like you do.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Then I would suggest storing the honey on the hive until you wish to extract it. 

Crazy Roland


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## trapperdirk (Nov 3, 2013)

Getting a source of CO2 should be easy, as any welding supply shop should be able to sell you a tank and regulator. Refills are cheap, I know because I go through a lot of CO2 in my business. I would guess that a 20 or 30# tank would last an awful long time, maybe years.

The portability of this method should be a plus. Dry ice is susceptible to melting , so you may not have a supply just when you need it. Each time you wanted to implement the use of dry ice, you would have to drive somewhere and buy it. Whereas a tank and regulator, though they take up a little space, could be available all the time. 

This is starting to sound like a good science fair project for one of my kids!!!!! On second thought, they would probably get kicked out because they killed some bugs during the experiment.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I finally got a little spending cash from a consulting job, and bought a toy I've been eyeing for about a year. It is a CO2 meter development kit, a non-dispersive IR sensor on a small board with a USB interface, complete with datalogging software. I went for the option that senses up to 100% concentration. There are a lot of CO2 sensors out there, but most target very low concentrations for building health for humans. Affordable sensors with a range to cover lethal exposure for moth larvae are scarce.

Here's what I bought: http://www.co2meter.com/collections...n=New Oxygen Sensor | 100% CO2 Devkitscontent

After a bit of bother getting the USB driver installed, this thing works a treat. I have it running on an antiquated XP laptop, perfect for running this dumb logging application out in the boonies.

First test: an unsealed 53 liter Sterilite container (the lid is designed to vent). Within a couple of hours the CO2 was mostly gone, as expected.









Second test: The same container with the lid wrapped to the body using two passes of plastic stretch cling wrap. The CO2 mostly dissipated overnight.









Third test, still running, and will be until later in the week, because the CO2 concentration was showing 100% several hours after starting the logging. The data will be available then. This one uses a gasket between the container and the lid, plus several passes of cling stretch wrap. This seems to be getting the job done. 

The test frames in this test are 8 medium frames pulled from the bottom of a hive that had moved up off of them. They looked in good shape, although I did see a small moth on one of them. As I started injecting the gas, I watched. At around 95%, I noticed a number of larvae (wax moth or SHB, although SHB have not been seen much this year) were dropping to the bottom. These were still wiggling a little. By the time the concentration indicated 100%, the number of larvae had increased into the hundreds. These ranged in length from about 8-20 mm. I'm thinking this might be a useful advantage of CO2 ... if the larvae crawl out to die, there's less mess for the bees to clean up, and if you are storing the frames, better not to have dead larvae in them.

By about two hours, the larvae seemed to not be moving.

At these concentrations, provided they hold as the data so far suggest, lethality should be complete in 4 hours, per the study done in Israel.


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## Joe Mac (Jun 1, 2016)

Phoebee, I am also a "prepper" and have researched just how they package foods like corn, beans etc for long term storage to keep insects out and found out they use CO2 or I think sometimes they use nitrogen. Airtight containers filled with these inert gasses also adds a lot of shelf life to foods by keeping out oxygen, which causes foods to spoil. I have thought about gassing honey supers with CO2 to kill moths, SHB and other pests. Instead of a container like the Sterilite plastic storage bins, which as you described is not very tight, do you think heavy plastic bags, made to enclose palletized materials, would keep the frames or supers with frames tight enough to keep moths out after treating with CO2? Supers with combs could be stacked say in a 4x4 configuration and put the bag on, starting at the top and pulling it down and tape it around the bottom. Companies such as U-Line sells these. Since CO2 is heavier than air, would it be best to inject the CO2 at the bottom so it will "float" out the air and completely fill the stacks? 

I have a fairly large empty chest type freezer and could freeze the combs, but I've read that either the greater or lesser wax moth eggs are not killed by freezing. I don't remember which one isn't killed but it doesn't matter. If some eggs are not killed, this is not a good option for me. 

I agree with you about the "moth ball" treatment or even the BT treatment. It may be approved to treat honey combs, but I don't want to sell or eat honey that has been produced in combs treated with these materials. 

Vacuum is also a way to kill insects. I had some corn that I was saving for seed and failed to put it in the freezer and weevils got into it. I experimented with it in a vacuum food sealer to see how quickly it would kill the weevils. I sealed 3 bags with about a pound of corn in each. The kill was almost instant. Even after venting it back to atmospheric pressure within a few minutes, the bugs were dead. I can't think of an easy way to vacuum honey combs, unless I built a chamber and hooked my vacuum pump to it, pulled a deep vacuum for a few minutes, vent it, and then remove it and seal it in a plastic bag and do the next one. That would be still be faster than freezing. 

Kudos to you for the research and testing you have done and continue to do on the CO2. Keep us posted
Joe Mac


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## DavidZ (Apr 9, 2016)

ahh one thing Phobee you are wrong about CO2 meters etc, they are easy to find, and there are no need for tests, marijuana growers have been using CO2 to kill pests for decades. the equipment is available to buy in the public domain quite cheap.
I've done it for years.

keep your ppm @ 5000ppm for 3 days,in a sealed room, and everything is dead including eggs.
co2 monitors are about $200.00US 
Just do not go into the room with the CO2 burner at full strength. or you will suffocate, and it only takes a few minutes.
it's the best pest control for indoor grows, or clearing anything of bugs.
CO2 burners cost about $120.00US and go up from there.
been there done that with 100% success. 

In 2010 up in Ward, Colorado we made the mistake of getting a so called nice couch off of craigs list and ended up with bedbugs.
I sealed up our house brought the CO2 burner in and ran it for4 days at 5000+ppm
left and then came home to no bugs.

Dry ice is worthless, because you will not be able to bring up yor ppm to 5000ppm, It just can't be done unless you have a 8oz glass then yeah, you can get 5000ppm, but to do what you are thinking about...forget pebbles and sheets of dry ice.

It's a Fact. The test have been done decades ago, YOU NEED A CO2 Burner to create the ppm necessary to kill pests.

CO2 will kill off wax moths and anything else, it takes 48hrs min to work this is why growers wait 4 days.

A investment into a CO2 burner, installed into a small room sealed up, your all taken care of, you can have clean bug free woodenware in 4 days.
One thing is these run off of natural gas or propane. 

you are looking at a $500.00 investment
is it worth it?

oh yeah, did I mention...Don't become a stat and kill yourself.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

DavidZ,

I don't think 5000 ppm (0.5%) will affect wax moths at all. It's not what these researchers found.

https://www.researchgate.net/public..._carbon_dioxide_enriched_modified_atmospheres

5000 ppm _*is*_ lethal to many organisms, though. I think that includes humans, and you'll find in my OP that I warn about this.

I noticed larvae dropping at 950,000 ppm. Ants dropped quickly at 500,000 ppm.

There is no reason dry ice won't do the job if you use enough of it. Its just a matter of determining how much weight you need to apply.

As far as investment goes, I'm looking at this as a research project. If I can wrangle a $1000 grant, $500 is minor. If I can publish a way for beekeepers to do this reliably without the meter, then for people who have CO2 on hand for other jobs (welding, brewing, and filling paint ball guns have all been mentioned above), then the investment is some wrapping material or plastic bins.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Joe Mac,

At the bee club meeting this week I want to ask the members with greater numbers of hives if I can try this on a pallet of their supers this year. I'm thinking you'd stack the supers on a large sheet of polyethylene film, fold that up around the stack using "hospital corners", then wrap the stack with something like U-LINE stretch wrap, basically an industrial-sized roll of Saran wrap. And I'll need to swap my little 5-pound cylinder for a bigger one.

A vacuum chamber that can do this job would be expensive. Flat-sided plastic will collapse under a partial vacuum.

I'd like to find a plastic bin that seals, with dimensions adequate for frames. Maybe some really big Tupperware? It would save a lot of hassle.


My experiment with a plastic bag was never sealed well enough to hold the concentration. I'm sure it could work if the technique were better.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

Phoebee said:


> Joe Mac,
> 
> At the bee club meeting this week I want to ask the members with greater numbers of hives if I can try this on a pallet of their supers this year. I'm thinking you'd stack the supers on a large sheet of polyethylene film, fold that up around the stack using "hospital corners", then wrap the stack with something like U-LINE stretch wrap, basically an industrial-sized roll of Saran wrap. And I'll need to swap my little 5-pound cylinder for a bigger one.
> 
> ...


Both carbon dioxide and oxygen diffuse rapidly thru polyethylene films. That is why you can bag tropical fish in such bags and leave them in there a month.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Richard,

Thanks for that. Evidently the grade has a lot to do with it. Low density polyethylene is indeed pretty permeable. HDPE is markedly better. Certainly, thicker films should be less permeable. I'll need to run some numbers ... if a particular film can hold 80% for 4 days, starting near 100%, this should be an assured kill.

http://www.faybutler.com/pdf_files/HowHoseMaterialsAffectGas3.pdf


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Hmmm, may be time to get down to Walmart!

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ziploc-60-Qt-Large-Deep-Weathertight-Storage-Box-Clear/38345584

Now, do they make one that can handle 40 10-frame deeps?


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## beehavior (May 20, 2016)

Richard Cryberg said:


> Both carbon dioxide and oxygen diffuse rapidly thru polyethylene films. That is why you can bag tropical fish in such bags and leave them in there a month.


:scratch: I am pretty sure you can't leave tropical fish in a bag for a month!


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

beehavior said:


> :scratch: I am pretty sure you can't leave tropical fish in a bag for a month!


ROFLMAO. Twenty five years or so ago a company was pre-bagging tropical fish so stores could just hang the bags on a display board. As I remember those fish were warranted for over a month of shelf life. I saw them in several local pet stores, but it was a fad that came and went fast. Of course it does depend on the particular species. Some are more tolerant than others. I once kept a full grown Rivulus Hartii in a sealed pint sized plastic bag in one teaspoon of water for a couple of weeks just to see how it would do. I finally felt sorry for it and put it back in the tank and it was fine. If you wanted to bag a full grown discus for a month you would probably need at least a two gallon bag if not bigger.


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## beehavior (May 20, 2016)

Richard Cryberg said:


> ROFLMAO. Twenty five years or so ago a company was pre-bagging tropical fish so stores could just hang the bags on a display board. As I remember those fish were warranted for over a month of shelf life. I saw them in several local pet stores, but it was a fad that came and went fast. Of course it does depend on the particular species. Some are more tolerant than others. I once kept a full grown Rivulus Hartii in a sealed pint sized plastic bag in one teaspoon of water for a couple of weeks just to see how it would do. I finally felt sorry for it and put it back in the tank and it was fine. If you wanted to bag a full grown discus for a month you would probably need at least a two gallon bag if not bigger.


OK. I read that. One might be able to bag a Betta for a month. I suspect that was the fad fish.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

beehavior said:


> OK. I read that. One might be able to bag a Betta for a month. I suspect that was the fad fish.


Wrong


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## beehavior (May 20, 2016)

Richard Cryberg said:


> Wrong


OK

I don't want to hijack the thread but if you could tell me the type of fish that would be great!


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Phoebee said:


> Hmmm, may be time to get down to Walmart!
> 
> http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ziploc-60-Qt-Large-Deep-Weathertight-Storage-Box-Clear/38345584
> 
> Now, do they make one that can handle 40 10-frame deeps?


I now have two of these Ziploc storage boxes, and have a number of runs with them.

Initial tests were better than the cheap containers, but still not good enough. I was losing CO2 below the 80% mark overnight. When I closed the vent line, I still did not get any measurable pressure in the containers. I concluded that the gasket is an open cell foam and was leaking too much.

Still, these gasketed 6-latch containers seemed like they ought to work. I bought a tube of Permatex Flowable Windshield and Glass Sealer, the really runny stuff you find at auto parts stores, and ran about half a tube (3/4 ounce) over the gasket, working it up the sides. After allowing a day for it to set up, I introduced gas again and watched the concentration. Now, after filling to approximately 100%, the concentration drops to roughly 80% after 200 hours (about 8 days). That's an assured kill according to the research data.

I have since run several sets of frames in it and it does in fact seem to really do the buggers in.

With the flow of gas into the containers at several liters per minute, back pressure in the containers is still low, but measurable, at around 1 cm of water. So the gaskets still leak a little but it is greatly reduced. It is probably best that the seal not be perfect, as changes in atmospheric pressure would probably distort the container.

Sakhoney, in another thread on this topic, reports excellent success using lower concentrations (unmeasured) in sealed shipping containers, or "sea cans". These apparently hold CO2 really well for a month or more. Sakhoney fumigates supers full of frames on the industrial scale, filling one of these large seagoing containers.

The other thread is here: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?331130-Dry-ice-CO2-against-wax-moths


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Phoebee - I see where your still on this and got something for you to kick around. Ever see/use that real thick black plastic liner they line ponds/use under roads ECT A couple of wraps of this stuff and it should be air tight. Got a mess of it here on the rig and get ya a photo if needed. Wrap a box with this stuff and some duct tape and it should do the trick. 
SAK


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## Tom_A (Dec 12, 2014)

Phoebee,
Have you thought of using a non-working fridge, many free on Craig's List. Pull all shelves, drawers and seal any vents, interior control ports and light outlets with odorless RTV. Check the door seal and replace if necessary. Could be used in horizontal or vertical position and could probably fit 4 or 5 supers in it pending the style. An upright type freezer would probably work the best. Also could use it for an Acetic acid sterilization if the metal interior was sealed with a spray on bed liner or similar.

Next idea: Drill & install a tubeless tire valve for filling.

But I was wondering about the implications of using carbon monoxide (CO) instead of CO2. If that is a viable gas to fumigate capped honey frames of at least drawn frames then I could hook up the garden tractor with a flex hose and get 7000ppm for the price of fuel.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Tom, I've thought of it. 

The truth is, small chest freezers are not all that expensive, and a new working one can be had for around $160. An old scummy one, still working, might be found for next to nothing. Honestly, those are the better solution than my bottled CO2 method on my small scale, for someone who has the room and power (probably most of us). 

Non-working ones are _supposed_ to have their doors removed so they're not a hazard to kids. The trick would be finding a dead fridge or freezer, that still has good seals, before it is de-doored. We do have a small gas refrigerator, disassembled, but my wife removed the door gasket meaning to replace it, and never did.

My next phase of this is to work up the method with dry ice. Where this system may prove economical on a small scale is using dry ice, where you don't need to buy a cylinder and regulator. The catch is having a convenient and economical source. Some people may be able to get it free, discarded after it is used for cold shipments.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Tom A - Funny you would bring up CO. While I never tried it - I knew a beekeeper that dies a few years back that took a lawn mower - filled it with gas. Shoved it into a sea can and started it. Let it run until out of gas. Said it killed everything in the sea can. I cannot say it worked or not but he swore it did. Your post jarred that memory - he was a good old boy (may he RIP)


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## Greeny (Jun 27, 2016)

Phoebee,
I'm in your neck of the woods and have picked up a couple of fridges for free in our area. Just search Craigslist under the Free Stuff. I scrounge them for the sheet metal for other projects, and then haul the rest to the landfill. The one's I've found are fairly modern and in good shape physically.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

sakhoney said:


> Phoebee - I see where your still on this and got something for you to kick around. Ever see/use that real thick black plastic liner they line ponds/use under roads ECT A couple of wraps of this stuff and it should be air tight. Got a mess of it here on the rig and get ya a photo if needed. Wrap a box with this stuff and some duct tape and it should do the trick.
> SAK


A couple of sloppy experiments with heavy plastic bags were unsuccessful. I emphasize sloppy ... sealing these up will be the challenge. Roll and tuck while in a hurry does not work.

One poster above pointed out that polyethylene can be highly permeable to CO2. Looking it up, thin films of low density (LDPE) will be the worst. High density (HDPE) should be better, especially in thicker films. There's also Ultra High Molecular Weight (UHMW) polyethylene ... not sure it is available as a film. So knowing the type of film is important. I suspect what you have is heavy HDPE or UHMW.

On the list of things to try is to stack boxes and wrap them with film, all hospital-corners and taping down. I have some heavy black PE film (probably HDPE). I was hoping to get a friend with more woodenware and frames to store to provide subject supers, but didn't manage to coordinate it this fall.

Greenie, are you in PWRBA?

Tom A, carbon monoxide (CO) scares me witless. I have not considered using it. It likely would work, though. Burning charcoal in an airtight container is the easy way to make it.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

We received a box of frozen steaks on Wednesday, so that provided an opportunity to try out the dry ice fumigation process on Thursday, on our trip to the mountains and our apiary.

By the time we got there and I weighed what was left, the net weight of the dry ice was a meager 4.8 ounces, about 136 grams. I dumped this into the 60 qt test chamber, and the concentration started to rise.

136 grams of dry ice is about 3.1 moles, which at sea level should produce about 69 liters of gas. The 60 qt container is 56.8 liters. The test location is at 1800 ft, so volume would be slightly higher. If mixing were occurring and the room purge equation were running the show, I would expect something like 70-75% concentration would result. One can hope for better, because the CO2 (already a heavy gas relative to air) is being produced cold at the bottom of a box filled with baffles (frames of comb).

Indeed, I got the perfect result, an indication of about 100% concentration of CO2! Nice result, strongly in favor of dry ice, if you have a convenient source. I did not measure the temperature in the container, but cold is certainly a help in killing wax moths.

This run clearly would have been lethal to any wax moth eggs and larvae, except for the fact that the frames had already been treated.


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## CowDoc1 (Apr 5, 2017)

One thing that may have been lost in this thread is that, primarily, it is the lack of oxygen that kills all of the bugs, larva and eggs. The CO2 is just being used to drive off the oxygen. It really doesn't matter if the CO2 concentration is only 10%... as long as the other 90% is NOT oxygen.

The oxygen permeability of the plastic (bags) is far more important than the CO2 permeability. There isn't a problem if most of the CO2 leaks out. It's the oxygen leaking in that allows the bugs to live. You can replace CO2 with most any gas other than oxygen and have the same killing effect. 

Of course, some gases bind to blood stronger than oxygen (i.e.carbon monoxide). Once someone has carbon monoxide in their blood, it's hard to get out. The carbon monoxide latches onto the red blood cells and blocks oxygen from binding, even if its available. That's why people often die from carbon monoxide poisoning, even if their rescued and given oxygen. I believe carbon monoxide also binds strongly to insect blood, although their blood is based on copper (green blood) rather than iron.

An oxygen meter rather than a CO2 meter may be a more useful tool for your testing. They're a bit cheaper too.


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