# Oxalic, Glycerin, Shop Towels - a promising stopgap flyswatter



## Ian

25 ml food grade glycerin warmed, 25g of Oxalic mixed til dissolved, soak in per shop towel then press out excess. Each towel should hold 25g treatment, total towel weight of 30g. Place towel ontop bar of hive which will be removed by the bees over 3-4 weeks. 

I think I'll try this treatment on my hives this next year. I think the best timing for my operation is early fall. I'm planning on using Apivar through the spring. As I pull off the last honey boxes in fall (mid August) we will apply this treatment to clean up the mites for winter. 
I've used OAV last fall with great efficacy but the hives needed to be brood free and the novelty of the application sure wore off after the second yard. 

Like Randy implied strongly, IPM, treatment rotation is part of good operation management.


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## Ian

...one thing about a flyswatter, it might involve more work, but flys form resistance to it very slowly... 

If the OA moves through the mite VIA the mites thin cuticle of their pads, physiological adaptation to that probably would be long


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## Specialkayme

Read Randy's article, got super excited about it. Look forward to using it this year. I probably won't wait till fall though.

But a thought came across my mind. You add 25 ml of glycerin and 25g of oxalic mixture to a 5g (roughly) shop towel, then squeeze out excess (about 25g worth) until you have 25g of product in towel, weighing 30g each.

Why not just add 25g worth of the mixture to a shop towel, rather than have to do the whole squeeze deal?


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## Ian

Specialkayme said:


> Why not just add 25g worth of the mixture to a shop towel, rather than have to do the whole squeeze deal?


I'm guessing to ensure proper even absorption


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## JSL

Ian said:


> ...one thing about a flyswatter, it might involve more work, but flys form resistance to it very slowly...
> 
> If the OA moves through the mite VIA the mites thin cuticle of their pads, physiological adaptation to that probably would be long


Ian, 

It is an interesting application and appears to pose less of a heath risk to the applicator. Can't remember if it is in the ABJ article or on his website in reference to this type of treatment. We do not know the mode of action for oxalic and the dose to kill Varroa is not much higher than the dose to kill honey bees, which suggests a relative low level of resistance could be a significant game changer. His words paraphrased, not mine.

Generally speaking, altering the delivery method only buys a little time for the class of insecticides as a whole...


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## JRG13

I think he published his glycerin experiment in ABJ.


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## Ian

Time = $$$$


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## JSL

Time = $$$$=shortsightedness


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## johno

JSL, when you refer to the dosage that would kill bees are you referring to the acid level in OAD. If so this is ingested by the bees to some extent whereas with the glycerin method the treatment is more by contact and as I understand is not ingested by the bees. I do recall some of the Argentinian beekeepers mentioning not to leave the stuff in overwinter as some bees apparently started feeding on it and there were some losses.
Johno


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## Oldtimer

Does the hive have to be broodless for this to work? And what is the hive configuration for this dose level. 

If feasable I may try it as a fall treatment, the hives at treatment time in fall are strongish double deeps with maybe 6 frames brood. Would the 25 g treatment be enough or should dose be increased? Is it placed between boxes or on the top box? I cannot see the bees taking as long 3 - 4 weeks to demolish it if between the boxes.

Do the OA crystals dissolve or do they stay in crystal form?


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## beemandan

JSL said:


> the dose to kill Varroa is not much higher than the dose to kill honey bees


I'm pretty sure that I read that the difference was actually quite large.

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-acid-questions-answers-and-more-questions-part-1-of-2-parts/

_'Ellis and Aliano found that OA is about 70 times as toxic to mites as it is to adult bees'_


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## Oldtimer

Also, stupid question maybe but in NZ we do not have shop towels, maybe they go under a different name, what is a shop towel a piece of cloth?


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## Ian

Oldtimer said:


> Also, stupid question maybe but in NZ we do not have shop towels, maybe they go under a different name, what is a shop towel a piece of cloth?


Go to your mechanic shop, look through the rag section. They should be there. Blue tough disposable usually sold under blue shop towel name


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## Ian

JSL said:


> Time = $$$$=shortsightedness


Do you hold the same opinion with MAQS? Thymol? Those magic blue shop towels not dipped in OA?


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## ChrisBex

Oldtimer said:


> Also, stupid question maybe but in NZ we do not have shop towels, maybe they go under a different name, what is a shop towel a piece of cloth?


I believe it's the blue scott shop towels that everyone refers too. Google it.


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## johno

Oldtimer, it appears Randy Oliver laid the shop towel over the top frames of the bottom box, I think he tried other places but this seems best. Last fall I used about 200ml of the stuff on 6 hives. I soaked kraft paper in the solution and put 3 sheets in each hive of four med boxes and left it there for 21 days while I vaporized OA 4 times in the other 14 home hives. A couple of weeks after the treatments I did mite counts, the OAV were low and the kraft paper treated were above the 3% level so I went back on those 6 hives with 4 OAV treatments. So this year I will try again with the shop towel idea.
Johno


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## AvatarDad

ChrisBex said:


> I believe it's the blue scott shop towels that everyone refers too. Google it.


they are basically very thick paper towels. Here in the States they are sold in paint stores and home improvement stores. Maybe automobile parts stores as well.


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## JSL

johno said:


> JSL, when you refer to the dosage that would kill bees are you referring to the acid level in OAD. If so this is ingested by the bees to some extent whereas with the glycerin method the treatment is more by contact and as I understand is not ingested by the bees. I do recall some of the Argentinian beekeepers mentioning not to leave the stuff in overwinter as some bees apparently started feeding on it and there were some losses.
> Johno


Johno, I paraphrased Randy's statement. 

My response is that it depends on the delivery method, as that ultimately determines the exposure level.

I don't have any personal experience with this method, but as with other forms dosage is important.


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## JSL

Ian, I am not sure what opinion you are referring to.


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## Riskybizz

I think these are what Randy was proposing...

http://www.staples.com/Scott-Shop-T...KPID=478463&cvosrc=PLA.bing-SALES.Ink & Toner


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## JSL

beemandan said:


> I'm pretty sure that I read that the difference was actually quite large.
> 
> http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-acid-questions-answers-and-more-questions-part-1-of-2-parts/
> 
> _'Ellis and Aliano found that OA is about 70 times as toxic to mites as it is to adult bees'_


My comment paraphrased Randy's comment. Perhaps he was referring to getting the proper dose? A little too much in the hive and there are negative effects on the bees. This seems easy to do and has been reported for all of the delivery methods I have read about.


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## Ian

JSL said:


> Ian, I am not sure what opinion you are referring to.


Your implied opinion that using OAV or OA through this method is shortsighted. 
What about other treatment methods such as MAQS or Thymol ? Is using those treatments shortsighted also ?


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## Ian

JSL said:


> My comment paraphrased Randy's comment. Perhaps he was referring to getting the proper dose? A little too much in the hive and there are negative effects on the bees. This seems easy to do and has been reported for all of the delivery methods I have read about.


I read the article the other way. The bees tended to thrive in the slightly more acidic hive. I have not read any neg effects from OA dosage
Unless using dribble which it burns the bees stomachs


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## msl

JSL said:


> It is an interesting application and appears to pose less of a heath risk to the applicator.


not sure that is true given the constrated nature, but people smarter then me can work it out 
after a quick look on goggle, I would approach this with caution as it is absorbed threw the skin, Its one thing to be handling OA mixed 1g/28.6ml with syrup, it is quite another to handle it mixed 1g/1ml
It is worth noting that your moving from a lethal human dose being about 3 hives worth ( EPA oad/oav dose) to were a single hive dose is almost 5X the human lethal dose, this is an industrial strength pesticide, treat it as such


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## JSL

msl said:


> not sure that is true given the constrated nature, but people smarter then me can work it out
> after a quick look on goggle, I would approach this with caution as it is absorbed threw the skin, Its one thing to be handling OA mixed 1g/28.6ml with syrup, it is quite another to handle it mixed 1g/1ml
> It is worth noting that your moving from a lethal human dose being about 3 hives worth ( EPA oad/oav dose) to were a single hive dose is almost 5X the human lethal dose, this is an industrial strength pesticide, treat it as such


Should have been more clear... I was thinking along the lines of vaporizing.

I would agree with your statement as I had to reread the formulation. It seemed like a typo at first compared to OA in syrup.


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## JSL

I think my stated opinion was that time=money=shortsighted.


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## JSL

Ian said:


> I read the article the other way. The bees tended to thrive in the slightly more acidic hive. I have not read any neg effects from OA dosage
> Unless using dribble which it burns the bees stomachs


Oxalic can be toxic to bees if the dose it high enough. I think this is true regardless of the delivery method.


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## Oldtimer

Thanks for the helpful answers guys


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## liljake83

Has anyone tried this treatment method in colder weather? Randy said something about possible wing damage in cooler temps


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## Ian

JSL said:


> Oxalic can be toxic to bees if the dose it high enough. I think this is true regardless of the delivery method.


And that harmful dose would be...? Nowhere close to the vaporizer or towel delivery method dosages


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## Ian

JSL said:


> I think my stated opinion was that time=money=shortsighted.


Come run my business, time = $$$ is not shortsighted around here


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## RAK

I treated with oa/gly with cardboard strips July and Aug. We saw an increase in brood on those hives. Queen must prefer acidic environment.


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## JSL

RAK said:


> I treated with oa/gly with cardboard strips July and Aug. We saw an increase in brood on those hives. Queen must prefer acidic environment.


Did you notice any initial brood damage? With some doses of formic and even thymol, they seem to do a little initial damaging, almost setting up a cleansing effect before the colony bounces back with that beautiful brood.


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## JSL

Ian said:


> Come run my business, time = $$$ is not shortsighted around here


I would probably get fired before my first cup of coffee. 

I understand the concept, but I think in this context the cheapest and easiest way may not be ideal long term. It seems as though we are running out of viable options, the types of cheap easy treatments we have grown accustomed to. For the long term good of the industry, maybe we should look a little farther out.


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## JSL

Ian said:


> And that harmful dose would be...? Nowhere close to the vaporizer or towel delivery method dosages


I don't know the direct answer to that Ian as it appears to be variable. There is some work that has determined the LD50 dose of OA for honey bees, but with the different treatment methods it seems to vary. You mentioned stomach issues as described for the drench method and primarily in clustered bees. The glycerin application mentions wing damage, again in somewhat confined settings. To me, this suggests, treatments are walking the fine line when it comes to "killing a bug on a bug". I am not saying this is good or bad, just the game we play.


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## JSL

Ian said:


> I read the article the other way. The bees tended to thrive in the slightly more acidic hive. I have not read any neg effects from OA dosage
> Unless using dribble which it burns the bees stomachs


Funny how people can read the same thing and walk away with a different view... I interpreted it to mean the oxalic provided some sort of stress which resulted in a sort of purging and then rebuilding. I think this has been described for formic too. Sometimes when organisms are stressed or challenged, they step up their game.


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## Ian

JSL said:


> I would probably get fired before my first cup of coffee.
> .


Ha ha , na, I'd get my money's worth out of you for sure. 


Cheap , easy on bees, effective, quick
:thumbsup:
It will be interesting to see how it pans out


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## Ian

JSL said:


> Sometimes when organisms are stressed or challenged, they step up their game.


Assuming it causes stress at these dosages. Perhaps the bees are simply thriving.


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## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> Also, stupid question maybe but in NZ we do not have shop towels, maybe they go under a different name, what is a shop towel a piece of cloth?


Do a google search OT. Blue shop towels. It probably isn't necessary for them to be blue.  They are used for cleaning up spills and such in auto repair shops. Paper...disposable. Heavier than kitchen paper towels.


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## JSL

Ian said:


> Cheap , easy on bees, effective, quick
> :thumbsup:
> It will be interesting to see how it pans out


Your description reminds me of a thought I had sitting in a meeting listening to a researcher from Bayer. He was describing all of the steps and costs to develop a new compound and ended by saying it was really difficult to compete with a treatment that beekeepers could make for pennies. Are we our own worst enemy due the ingenuity and thriftiness of beekeepers? As soon as we catch wind of a new compound or application we are off to the shop.


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## Specialkayme

JSL said:


> Are we our own worst enemy due the ingenuity and thriftiness of beekeepers? As soon as we catch wind of a new compound or application we are off to the shop.


How is that a bad thing? So beekeepers don't want to pay $5.00 for a product that costs $0.02 in materials. Seems logical to me.


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## Ian

Your really confusing me here Joe... this is not a new compound on the market. Canada has had OA registered for a good 10 years now, and the evolution of its treatment applications is evolving. This latest blue shop towel idea isn't new, Randy simply perfected it with Glycerin and through his brilliant nature has been able to demonstrate it to the masses. 
It's cheap, easy on bees, easy to apply, kills mites, and not a synthetic chemical. :thumbsup:

My biggest complaint towards Big Pharma is their only focus is on $$$ return to their bottom line, so naturally their RND focus is directed as such, along with their promotion of such products. 
But bring out a compound which side steps all that and your critical....??


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## Ian

BTW
I appreciate expression of alternative views. It creates excellent dialogue. 
:thumbsup:


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## dgl1948

Ian, as we are in the country where our weather is about the same I have a couple of issues that concern me with this treatment. It would seem to me that in order for it to work the bees would have to be fairly active so it would have to be done before they cluster. This would then leave us with brood in the hive and that is the source of our mites. We could still have a mite problem if the treatment was complete and we still have brood. It would seem to me that if one had to wait until our temps were low enough to have brood rearing stopped that the bees may not be active enough for the treatment to work. I am looking at this from the point of wintering bees outside. This may not apply to those of you that winter inside.
I am thinking this may be a better treatment for in the spring before brood appears in the hive. It would give it plenty of time to work before we get our honey flow.


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## Ian

The duration of the treatment is over multiple weeks. Same idea as Chem strips, constant exposure over a long time, targeting one or two generations of mites depending on treatment duration. 
It's targeting a brood in hive treatment time frame


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## Ben Little

So is this the alternative to buying a VM Vaporizer ?? Reading these comments and Randy Olivers information on his site, I'm getting confused on the efficacy of OAV versus a blue shop towel.


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## zhiv9

I am interested to see different setups to make these towels. I was thinking some sort of simple hand press to get out the excess. I am concerned about consistently getting a good dose per shop towel.


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## zhiv9

Ben Little said:


> So is this the alternative to buying a VM Vaporizer ?? Reading these comments and Randy Olivers information on his site, I'm getting confused on the efficacy of OAV versus a blue shop towel.


The shop towels are more or slow release treatment over several weeks and will work with brood present. The VM vaporizer only kills phoretic mites. With brood present, you are looking at treating 4+ times every 5 days. Without brood you could probably get away with a couple of treatments.


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## Ben Little

zhiv9 said:


> The shop towels are more or slow release treatment over several weeks and will work with brood present. The VM vaporizer only kills phoretic mites. With brood present, you are looking at treating 4+ times every 5 days. Without brood you could probably get away with a couple of treatments.


Have you used this method before and have you had good results ?


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## zhiv9

Ben Little said:


> Have you used this method before and have you had good results ?


No, I read Randy's article and followed the discussion on Bee-L. A couple of Bee-L subscribers from South America have been using the OA and glycerine on cardboard strips for a little while with success. I have tried OAV and it gets pretty old in hurry when you have to treat more than a couple of times.


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## JSL

Specialkayme said:


> How is that a bad thing? So beekeepers don't want to pay $5.00 for a product that costs $0.02 in materials. Seems logical to me.


I think the challenge is that we want companies to play by the rules when developing products that may ultimately effect our bees, but then we turn around and circumvent those same rules to save money. The person I listened to explained the cost in terms of R&D but also getting through regulations.


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## JSL

Ian said:


> Your really confusing me here Joe... this is not a new compound on the market. Canada has had OA registered for a good 10 years now, and the evolution of its treatment applications is evolving. This latest blue shop towel idea isn't new, Randy simply perfected it with Glycerin and through his brilliant nature has been able to demonstrate it to the masses.
> It's cheap, easy on bees, easy to apply, kills mites, and not a synthetic chemical. :thumbsup:
> 
> My biggest complaint towards Big Pharma is their only focus is on $$$ return to their bottom line, so naturally their RND focus is directed as such, along with their promotion of such products.
> But bring out a compound which side steps all that and your critical....??


Did I mistype? OA is not new, but the delivery system with glycerin is relatively new. Randy did not develop this new concept it goes back farther than that. Perhaps Randy is where you first heard about it? Whenever the delivery system is altered many things change, such as dose, time of application, or who knows what else. 

Normally I would agree with your assessment of "Big Pharma" but in this instance, from what little I understand, there is very little financial incentive to help beekeepers. As I wrote earlier, we quickly create our own black market mite treatments, good bad or indifferent. **Pure speculation on my part, but I would guess there is greater return generated from a public display of "helping honey bees", meaning they do it for the public image.**


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## JSL

zhiv9 said:


> I am interested to see different setups to make these towels. I was thinking some sort of simple hand press to get out the excess. I am concerned about consistently getting a good dose per shop towel.


Perhaps the easiest and most consistent way is to count the number of towels in the stack and weigh the stack as you press/drain them until you get to the appropriate average weight per towel. Maybe it doesn't really matter?


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## JSL

Ian said:


> BTW
> I appreciate expression of alternative views. It creates excellent dialogue.
> :thumbsup:


Ditto, I learn very little from those that agree with me.


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## Riskybizz

Joe

I've followed this thread and its an interesting proposition for sure. When you say "we want companies to play by the rules"...im not really sure what you mean. What rules are you referring to? I for one don't expect any corporation to adhere to any specific rules when it comes to their own product and development? Are we not supposedly in a free market economy, left alone to our own devices? Quite frankly I'm not sleeping any better these night's in anticipation of the Monsanto's of this world solving the problems vectored by varroa within the beekeeping industry. Just my opinion of course.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Joe's point seems clear to me .... beekeepers complain about _others_ (farmers, landscapers, homeowners, mosquito control groups, etc) that do not strictly follow the rules / label directions when applying licensed pesticides, and yet here we are as beekeepers doing the same thing (or worse) - formulating and applying off-label / non-approved pesticides.

While beekeepers may be concerned with their honey bees, who is evaluating the [possible] side effects of these home-brew pesticides on _other_ critters (meaning critters other than varroa and other than honey bees)? :s


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## JSL

Riskybizz said:


> Joe
> 
> I've followed this thread and its an interesting proposition for sure. When you say "we want companies to play by the rules"...im not really sure what you mean. What rules are you referring to?


Perhaps regulations would be a better term. The big concern comes down to the food product we produce. If we use illegal formulations in our bees and it ends up on someone's table who is responsible?


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## JSL

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Joe's point seems clear to me .... beekeepers complain about _others_ (farmers, landscapers, homeowners, mosquito control groups, etc) that do not strictly follow the rules / label directions when applying licensed pesticides, and yet here we are as beekeepers doing the same thing (or worse) - formulating and applying off-label / non-approved pesticides.


Thanks Graham! We as beekeepers have received A LOT of grace from regulators in terms of our abuse of off label usage. If laws are enforced, we are all in trouble! My suspicion is that we are not too far away from additional enforcement. For example, honey packers seem to be scrutinizing honey samples more closely as the cost comes down and the reliability increases.


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## Specialkayme

zhiv9 said:


> I am interested to see different setups to make these towels. I was thinking some sort of simple hand press to get out the excess. I am concerned about consistently getting a good dose per shop towel.


I concur. I would be interested in seeing how people are "pressing" the towels. When doing one or two, seems fairly straight forward (add product, press until you have 25g of residue). When making 50, it seems like you should be able to get some type of a system down (e.g. add X lbs of weight).


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## Specialkayme

JSL said:


> I think the challenge is that we want companies to play by the rules when developing products that may ultimately effect our bees, but then we turn around and circumvent those same rules to save money. The person I listened to explained the cost in terms of R&D but also getting through regulations.


The problem is the R&D and regulation costs are high. Not astronomical, but high. But even when you get through R&D and regulation, not all products are a hit. So you have to take the products that are successful and jack up the prices to pay for not only the R&D and regulation on the product that worked, but the thousands of products that failed in the regulation phase, or the tens of thousands of products that failed in the R&D phase. Not just those that applied to bees, but all agriculture. 

Yes, I see how an company needs to recoup it's R&D and regulation costs. But cosmetic, food, automotive and electronic companies also have high R&D and regulation costs. Their markup is often 50% over materials, to account for their investment. Instead, ag chemicals have to mark it up significantly more, for the same reasons. If they don't get enough, it isn't "worth their time." Cry me a river.

Monsanto released their first quarter 2017 earnings, and they had $2.65 Billion in net sales. Their gross profit on that was $1.259 Billion. Then you take out their operating expenses, R&D costs, regulation costs, interest expenses, bonus expenses, and they still turned a profit of $29 Million. (http://news.monsanto.com/press-rele...ngs-share-growth-strong-first-quarter-results). Companies are out for a profit, no doubt. No problem with that. Just don't cry me a river about how your industry is so "expensive" and you have to "recoup your costs." Balance sheets are showing that's being done just fine.

I think I'll go back to mixing my $0.02 worth of OA in a bucket.


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## Oldtimer

beemandan said:


> Do a google search OT. Blue shop towels. It probably isn't necessary for them to be blue.  They are used for cleaning up spills and such in auto repair shops. Paper...disposable. Heavier than kitchen paper towels.


Thanks Beeman. Done the search and turns out we have the exact same shop towels available here that you guys have. 
I've been using OA for a few years but having to go back 4 or 5 times kills any financial advantage. Fall treatment time here is a couple of months away and I'm planning to jump in and use Randy's one shot shop towel method on 300 hives as a trial, got a good feeling about this.


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## Riskybizz

"who is evaluating the [possible] side effects of these home-brew pesticides on other critters (meaning critters other than varroa and other than honey bees)" ?....

You mean like second hand smoke Rader?? Isn't Uncle Sam on top of all that? :scratch: 

But Joe how can it be off label usage if the EPA has already approved the product for mite treatments?


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## Rader Sidetrack

"Off-label" means any method that is _not_ specified on the pesticide label!

When it comes to oxalic acid and bees, what IS approved (and detailed on the product label) is the vaporization or the dribble methods. If you want to read an approved label, see this:
https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/ppls/091266-00001-20151013.pdf


_Any_ other method of utilizing oxalic acid as a pesticide for varroa control is "off-label'.


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## RAK

OA/ gly is not a legal method of application. However if your using it to stimulate the queen and the mites died because of it...


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## JSL

RAK said:


> OA/ gly is not a legal method of application. However if your using it to stimulate the queen and the mites died because of it...


Creative! :thumbsup:


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## Oldtimer

RAK said:


> OA/ gly is not a legal method of application. However if your using it to stimulate the queen and the mites died because of it...


Nor is taktic, but people do what they have to do then at some point the rules get changed.


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## johng

Any one figured up a formula for say 50 or 100 shop towels yet? Math is not my forte


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## JSL

johng said:


> Any one figured up a formula for say 50 or 100 shop towels yet? Math is not my forte


25ml Glycerin and 25g OA per towel

50 towels = 1.25 liters (1250mls) Glycerin and 1.25 kg (1250g) OA

Always double check my math.


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## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> Done the search and turns out we have the exact same shop towels available here that you guys have.


For a country that drives on the wrong side of the road....has their seasons backward and whose water spins clockwise when exiting the drain.....it is good to see that you have one piece of civilization intact.


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## Ian

...there are guys on Facebook openly sharing their "magic blue shop towel" sheep dip formulations on the commercial beekeeper group page...


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## HarryVanderpool

JSL said:


> 25ml Glycerin and 25g OA per towel
> 
> 50 towels = 1.25 liters (1250mls) Glycerin and 1.25 kg (1250g) OA
> 
> Always double check my math.


WOW!
2 1/2 lbs of oxalic for only 50 hives?
Quite a difference from the dribble method.
Less than half the hives treated.


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## Ian

Think I read the towel holds 12.5g OA,


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## liljake83

HarryVanderpool said:


> WOW!
> 2 1/2 lbs of oxalic for only 50 hives?
> Quite a difference from the dribble method.
> Less than half the hives treated.


Harry but then it gets pressed out I would imagine you could then soak new towels in the pressings


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## beemandan

HarryVanderpool said:


> Less than half the hives treated.


Look at it this way. This method stays active for weeks and will kill mites as they emerge with brood for that period....while the dribble method is a flash....single moment in time for phoretic mites only.


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## JSL

HarryVanderpool said:


> WOW!
> 2 1/2 lbs of oxalic for only 50 hives?
> Quite a difference from the dribble method.
> Less than half the hives treated.


Harry, I did a double take when I first saw the numbers.


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## Ian

Recheck your numbers Joe

Roughly 2 1/2 pound OA for 100 towels
12.5g OA per towel


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## crofter

Ian said:


> Recheck your numbers Joe
> 
> Roughly 2 1/2 pound OA for 100 towels
> 12.5g OA per towel


Considering that a lot of that will be carried out by the bees over a period of weeks I dont see it being so remarkable. It is common enough to be using 16 g of OA to do two consecutive series of vaporization when bees are brooding.

I never weighed a maqs pad but I bet it is a whole lot heavier!


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## JSL

Ian said:


> Recheck your numbers Joe
> 
> Roughly 2 1/2 pound OA for 100 towels
> 12.5g OA per towel


Ian, please confirm, I think for making of the towels, Randy stated 25mg OA and 25ml Glycerin per towel. Once you press them the actual amount is perhaps the 12.5g OA?

I am not certain of why the need for excess then pressing. Maybe a pan or box the size of the towels and then add the exact amount? Haven't used them, so there must be a reason...


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## JSL

As per Randy's ABJ article. 

"The final 'dry' towel will hold about 25g of solution and weigh about 31g."

Is this were the confusion is coming from? That 25g of 1:1 solution should be about 12.5g o OA


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## Ian

Ya I'm thinking he mixes a large amount to ensure accurate distribution within the towels, , then pressed out to obtain that 25g weight per Towel of solution, which holds 12g of OA


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## HarryVanderpool

I think I have a much better solution than soaking and pressing.
Back in the day, I used something similar when applying "something else". :shhhh:

Cut a roll of blue shop towels in half so that it looks more like a roll of toilet paper.
Make a box with a deep pan in the bottom and mount a series of plastic rolls that are in the pan on both ends.
Above the box on the lid make a roll holder just like a toilet paper holder.
Make a slot in the lid so that the towel can be threaded through the lid down into the pan and zig-zag back and forth through the glycerin solution and then through a pair of plastic plates that squeegee the excess off of the towel as it exits another slot on the top of the lid. The excess runs of the towel and plates back into the pan.
You carry this box through the yard and it works just like a tape dispenser.
You pull on the towel and it comes out coated and you tear each towel off at the next perforation.
Just like a tape dispenser.
When the towel runs out just put a new 1/2 roll on and staple it to the tail of the old roll.
Increasing the amount of rollers that the towel zig-zags through will give added soak time prior to being squeegeed off.
The big advantage of this method is that you mix up the solution, dump it in the pan, and away you go.

I have not tried this with glycerin, remember.
But it was a dream when applying "something else" :shhhh:


----------



## Ian

Mixing magic lol


----------



## HarryVanderpool

More like, "dispensing magic"


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## Outdoor N8

Not exactly a new chemical idea. However the shop towel holds the potential to a much better delivery system.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?322157-Oxalic-glycerin-on-cellulose-mite-treatment

*Oxalic/glycerin on cellulose mite treatment post 63*
So, let's see If I get this written down sensibly: I tried this and found it did reduce the mite load.

I do have doubts about results due to: sample size and plausible set up/user error.

My baseline for mite load was doing the sugar roll. I know not everyone is a fan and it's not as absolute as an alcohol wash but it's what I use. Sampling for the roll was 1/2 C. of bees (+/- 300) and were shook from brood nest frames with mature open larvae. Strips were placed in the hives 9/29 and pulled 10/31.

Hive 'G' (1HB 10F) went from 3 mites to 1
nuc 5 (5F) went from 2 mites to 4 (the one anomaly)
nuc 1 (5F) went from 2 to ? ( 5F and only one frame with OB, couldn't find the queen-she's a hider and skipped the second roll test rather than risk scooping the Q)
nuc 3 (5F) went from 2 to 0
Hive R (2HB 10F) went from 4 mites to 2
hive V (2HB 10F) wnet from 6 mites to 2

The thing I noticed most was , some hives chewed the heck out of the strips and these were the ones with the greater mite reduction (hives G and V). Other hives chose to instead chew away the cells from underneath the strips and seemed not to have as great a reduction in mite load. I did go ahead and treat all with Apiguard after removing the strips.


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## beesohappy

Oldtimer said:


> Thanks Beeman. Done the search and turns out we have the exact same shop towels available here that you guys have.
> I've been using OA for a few years but having to go back 4 or 5 times kills any financial advantage. Fall treatment time here is a couple of months away and I'm planning to jump in and use Randy's one shot shop towel method on 300 hives as a trial, got a good feeling about this.


Hi Oldtimer! I'd really like to hear how you mix up and soak your rags but most of all the measurement amounts you use.


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## Oldtimer

Well haven't actually done it yet the only OA I've been using is as a vapor but that has disadvantages. Will certainly update when I do this glycerine method, planning to use the same measurements Randy suggests which finishes up at 12.5 grams OA per shop towel.

Just ordered a 4 gallon drum of glycerine.


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## crofter

Oldtimer said:


> Well haven't actually done it yet the only OA I've been using is as a vapor but that has disadvantages. Will certainly update when I do this glycerine method, planning to use the same measurements Randy suggests which finishes up at 12.5 grams OA per shop towel.
> 
> Just ordered a 4 gallon drum of glycerine.


Oldtimer; It would be a welcome thread and sort out a lot of questions if you would do a blow by blow of your measuring and mixing. Perhaps give instructions and equivalents of each ingredient by both volume and weight since people will be doing it by both methods. Perhaps it could be made a sticky?

I have materials ordered.


----------



## beesohappy

I haven't had a chance to sit down and read Randy's article yet so I apologize if it's been mentioned there already. Why glycerin and not vegetable oil like we use know?


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## crofter

beesohappy said:


> I haven't had a chance to sit down and read Randy's article yet so I apologize if it's been mentioned there already. Why glycerin and not vegetable oil like we use know?


I think you will find the vegetable oil will not dissolve the Oxalic. Glycerine is actually in the alcohol family and readily dissolves the oxalic acid and forms new compounds rather than a simple dilution. Heating temperatures and holding times will vary the resulting composition and effectiveness.

Oltimer has some fair bit of experience mixing _medcines_ for different critters so I think he could cut through the myriad of different questions that I foresee arizing. There is at least one patented process and a number of applications under way. There could conceivably be liability issues so Oldtimer may not want to touch it. He would be more informed about that than I am


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## msl

beesohappy said:


> Why glycerin and not vegetable oil like we use know?


 it will dissolve much more OA then water. OA is NOT solubility in vegetable oil. 


That leaves the question, why not soak a shop towel in a strong OAD mix? 
moving on to pure speculation- 

glycerin is used as carrier for lipophilic drugs, this might make it more easly absorbed into the bees vitellogenin- new research is sujesting that is what the mites are feeding on, not the hemolymph. http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=bee-l;ebbfa787.1611 

locked up in the fats may cause the OA to persist in the bees system longer

If it is indeed the lipophilic action at work, in theroy this could cause the OA to be excreted threw the mandibular gland in the lipid rich worker jelly and thus transferred to the brood and knock back mite reproduction. The lipophilic action could also cause OA residue to be absorbed in to the wax, for good or bad.


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## Oldtimer

msl said:


> That leaves the question, why not soak a shop towel in a strong OAD mix?


Thing with OAD is the sugar content encourages the bees consume some of it, and it can even end up in food stores, which is why using it too often can have a suppressive effect on brood raising the next spring while OAV does not.

Can't find it, but maybe 2 years ago on Beesource there was a thread talking about the mode of action of OA and asking if AOD worked by being consumed and poisoning mites when they fed, or by getting on the bees bodies. A link was given to an experiment that demonstrated it was the OA on the outside of the bees bodies that did the damage to the mites, and sugar in the OAD merely served to get the bees working on the OAD and getting in contact with it, but any OA consumed was a negative as it damages the bees.

So that's to me anyway, what seems so perfect about using glycerine as a carrier. It will not be consumed by the bees so removes that negative, but as the bees dismantle the towel over time the bees cannot avoid getting OA on their exoskeletons. The close nature of the way bees live together mean it will spread over them all just like other miticides we use.

That's what seems to be the theory anyway.


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## Oldtimer

Well Rader came to the rescue and sleuthed out the thread I was talking about, in it, a link to an article by Randy with this quote 

"We still didn’t know whether the acidity of OA killed the mite through ingestion of acidic bee “blood,” or by direct contact. Ellis and Aliano (2005) performed a clever experiment: By splitting single dequeened colonies with various dividers, and treating only one side, they found that oxalic is apparently transferred through the colony by bee body contact, rather than through trophallaxis (mouth-to-mouth transfer), and distributes well by such contact (80% kill on treated side, 65% kill on untreated).
OK, so OA spreads and kills by contact"

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-acid-questions-answers-and-more-questions-part-1-of-2-parts/


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## msl

Oldtimer said:


> what seems so perfect about using glycerin as a carrier. It will not be consumed by the bees so removes that negative


again, pure speculation on my part, I was working on the reasoning that do to being 40% as sweet as sugar the bees will consume the glycerine. Am I mistaken?

edit-found this
American Bee Journal - Volume 2 July 1866 Page 20 "Glycerine as Bee Food"
talks about trials using glycerin to replace sugar syrup in supplemental feeding. 
"Dr Aszmusz says that his bees readily consume the glycerine"
https://books.google.com/books?id=M...AC#v=onepage&q=bees glycerin counsume&f=false
The world has changed...back in the day glycerin was a cheap industrial byproduct and sugar was expensive kinda funny to think about.


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## Oldtimer

Oh well if that's the case, my mistake.

I got my information from the latest Randy article in ABJ where he stated that bees hate glycerine and try to avoid it.

So since there are two stated views that conflict, once the glycerine shows up I'll do my own experiment to find out.


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## Oldtimer

Hmm just noticed the communication from Dr. Aszmusz of Leipzig claiming bees can be induced to eat glycerine, was dated april 14th, 1866.

Not that makes it wrong but I'll certainly do my own work.


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## RDY-B

the glycerin is not consumed by the bees-remember after you mix in the OA it really is not glycerin any more 
is it--it is a different base because of the alcohol esters that react with the OA--not so sweet any more---
the alcohol esters will evaporate over a time period --this causes a re crystalizing of the OA--water (moisture)
will pull the OA out of the glycerin solution-so this seams to be a specific time frame for any giving environment that is conducive for the treatment-the time frame that is talked about is around two brood cycles 
in the sumer-----bees are contacting the towels and chewing them up and throughing them out the front door--
perhaps it is a treatment that has two modes of action a reales of OA from the solution and even a contact
mode after the recrystlising occurs and towels are removed by the bees---RDY-B
----


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## Ian

There was mention in Randy's article that higher concentration of glycerin slowed the tear down of the towel. His formulation gave the optimal treatment period


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## msl

I think RDY-B hit the nail on the head.... bee may eat glycerin, but after you mix that much acid with it, its no longer palatable :doh:


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## DerTiefster

Has anyone been considering a glycerine/OA fog? It could be more persistent than a water-based dribble and more finely divided than that, also. Not as finely divided as the condensing, sublimated OA in the vaporizer, but the idea is the same. To the extent that the "oily" glycerine is also stickier and more likely to creep on the surfaces of the bees and mites, it might have a longer period of activity.

Another positive is that metering the material through a positive displacement pump and fogger would provide a definite dose. Again, to the extent that the fog is stickier than the OA microcrystals from condensed vapor, it would be more likely to remain in the hives and on the frames. If I were developing this further, that's where I'd go.

Michael


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## msl

when you heat OA+glycerine that hot it breaks down into formic acid


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## DerTiefster

msl: If you're responding to my "fog" question, there are mechanical misters which can create a fine fog apart from any mechanism using added heat and evaporation. OAV application uses heat to make vapor, which recondenses into microcrystals when it hits cooler air. Water vapor coming off a pot of water ("steam") does this, too. These make exceedingly fine droplets/particulates. But there are mechanical means of misting water in fine droplets. High pressure behind an appropriate orifice may be a mans to do this, especially using entrained gases. Perhaps glycerine can be used this way, too. The reason for mentioning "positive displacement pump" was to evoke the idea of mechanical mist creation rather than boiling.


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## msl

sorry might be my FX background as you used the term "fog"
in my world
"fog" is a vaporizer product produced with heat 
"mist" is a mechanical product

fog can be lighter than air, mist is not so there is an issue there in dispensing inside the hive.

I am not sure what misting the mix into the hive will accomplish, I would assume dead bees given the oa dose size, The whole point of the setup is time release over weeks


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## RDY-B

IF you where going to fog through say a burgess fogger or a similar type then there would be no need
for the glycerin--its twice the cost of oil--they have fogged everything from food grade mineral oil-
to amitraz--fogging with mechanical means is very sketchy with regards to a refined process-that gives use a break of 
prolonged treatments and resistance--RDY-B


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## DerTiefster

Not trying to start an argument... but I wasn't trying to say that X ml of solution Z was appropriate. I asked whether an aerosol application of glycerine/OA had been discussed in your hearing and within the range of the readers of this thread. In common public use, aerosol insecticides are often called "foggers." That might even be someone's trademarked name, but I think it's generally descriptive of the aerosol they create being dense enough not to see through. The thought was generated by OAV creating a cloud of microcrystals finely dispersed in the air, as opposed to the glycerine/towel application being oriented toward the feet of the insects. If the aerosol coverage is good enough, it might rapidly overwhelm the mites, and be "stickier" than the finely divided OA.

This was purely a speculative proposition, although it appears to me that it stands a good chance of being a successful path. Of course, I'm neither entomologist nor government-appointed ordainer of what you can/can't do. I just look at stuff and try to keep my neural pathways buzzing.


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## RDY-B

many good ideas are emerging--I had many thoughts my self -intil i got
some glycerin and it is a thick viscous syrup--needs temp confederation
the idea behind this is for a way to work this in to a commercial setting--
there are proven techies from hobby keepers that work very well--but
they can not be employed in a commercial operation--this is a tough hurdle to leap
--so the path that has been paved before us shows promise but has its limits
OA has been around a long time--but has a rediscovery in its future--RDY-B


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## crofter

Over the years I have been exposed to both heat and mechanically created vapors and mists. I dont like the reaction I get from it. With that in mind I certainly am not attracted to the idea of fogging or misting this relatively new formulation of oxalic acid. I much prefer the idea of having it stabilized in the cardboard or shop towel form and have the bees disperse it as they shred and remove the carrier material from the hive. Very little of it need become airborne.

I have been using oxalic acid vaporization for three years and look forward with hopes for the new formulations benefits.


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## johno

As a matter of fact I have tried the glycerin OA mixture in a fogger and it fogs quite well, there is no odor of FA or OA. I was going to do a trial of some hives this spring and see if it will take mites down. I have used mineral oil with wintergreen before and you cannot put the nozzle of the fogger into the hive entrance without the danger of ignition, however I was able to do this with the Glycerin OA mixture without any problems so getting the vapor or fog into the hive is a breeze and very quick.
Johno


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## snl

johno said:


> As a matter of fact I have tried the glycerin OA mixture in a fogger and it fogs quite well, there is no odor of FA or OA.


What were the results? Mite kill that is........


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## camero7

crofter said:


> Over the years I have been exposed to both heat and mechanically created vapors and mists. I dont like the reaction I get from it. With that in mind I certainly am not attracted to the idea of fogging or misting this relatively new formulation of oxalic acid. I much prefer the idea of having it stabilized in the cardboard or shop towel form and have the bees disperse it as they shred and remove the carrier material from the hive. Very little of it need become airborne.
> 
> I have been using oxalic acid vaporization for three years and look forward with hopes for the new formulations benefits.


:thumbsup:


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## Specialkayme

johno said:


> As a matter of fact I have tried the glycerin OA mixture in a fogger and it fogs quite well, there is no odor of FA or OA.


I see this as a very fast way to a quick death.

What's the point of using the glycerin OA mixture in a fogger as opposed to a vaporizer?
The point of the glycerin OA mixture in a shop towel is to provide continued exposure over a one month time period. You seem to lose that benefit by fogging.


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## johno

Snl, when I mixed a mixture of glycerin and OA for trials I did by soaking some of the mixture into kraft paper I used the remainder in a mineral oil fogger and fogged a few nucs just to see the reaction. It certainly covered the inside of the clonies well and seemed to have no ill effect. At a later time I mixed glycerin withformic acid that also fogged well and I also did some small colonies without ill effect. This spring I intend to do the shop towel test for 2 brood cycles and I will also do some fogging tests as well as straight vapor tests over the same period and then do mite checks. The 21 day test that I did last year with glycerin and OA left me with a mite count of 9 mites and I then went into a 4 treatment series with vapor those 6 colonies really look good at this moment. the other 8 colonies in this yard just got the normal 4 treatments of OAV andworke the mite counts of 0-2 mites, however one of the colonies with the 0 mite count I have just given the second winter treatment as there are quite a few in front of the entrance that seem unable to fly.
Johno


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## johno

The benefit of fogging if it works is the time taken to treat which is in the area of 10 secs per hive. I guess some of you folks seem to die very easily.
Johno


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## DerTiefster

Part the first.

We'll begin with the observation that installation of a paper towel,impregnated with glycerine carrying dissolved oxalic acid, simply places a small reservoir of the mixture of OA and glycerine where the bees will trample upon it and get their feet and shoelaces dirty. Some of the mixture will also soak into the exposed wood in contact with the towel. The towel is made of wood fibers. Can anyone identify a significant difference in character or quality between such a towel and the top few thousandths of an inch of wooden hive structure after some foolhardy, not to mention cruel and callous, soul applies an aerosol of glycerine and OA to the hive interior?

And that is why I thought one might profitably start "development" of such a procedure. "Development" is a long and decidedly non-trivial process.

Part the second

Consider a conversation between Abe, Bill, and Chuck beginning like this:

Abe: Is <something> possible?
Bill: Of course. I know it to be so.
Chuck: You're wrong. It's not possible.

Under some conditions, can Bill and Chuck both be correct? [The existence of such conditions does not mean that they recognize what's happening.] Bill may think that Abe's "possible" means, "Can this under some set of circumstances be done?" Chuck may think that the question deals with whether the proposed action is under all conditions, at all times, and in all places a Worthy, Safe, Laudable, Wise, and (above all) Legal action. Chuck may hold that "No" is the proper answer because of personal knowledge that in an obscure hamlet in New Jersey the proposed action is illegal on alternate Thursdays. In contrast, Abe knows that he actually Did That Deed last Tuesday, and no one was the wiser. They then launch into a fight to the <virtual> death over the issue, for as is often the case in modern times, this conversation was held over the internet.

In this beesource discussion, I said, "If I were developing this further, that's where I'd go." I have a meaning in mind for "develop" which may not be the same as that held by other participants in the conversation. I may not have the same definition in mind for "sketchy" and "refined process" as others hold ("...fogging with mechanical means is very sketchy with regards to a refined process..."), especially when "refined process" may refer to a still-off-label, meaning technically not even legal, action. We all ought to be careful of our descriptions. They can be unintentionally inflammatory. They can at times even be self-delusional.

I hope the above has been an appropriate combination of entertaining and educational.


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## msl

DerTiefster said:


> Abe: Is <something> possible?
> Bill: Of course. I know it to be so.
> Chuck: You're wrong. It's not possible.


nailed it:thumbsup:


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## Specialkayme

johno said:


> The benefit of fogging if it works is the time taken to treat which is in the area of 10 secs per hive.


And requiring you to return every 5-7 days, over 3-4 weeks, to treat the mites under the caps.



johno said:


> I guess some of you folks seem to die very easily.


Perfect words for an obituary.


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## Roland

Some have questioned the value of a "mist". I can see a situation arising where, do to lack of due diligence, mite levels got out of control, and Armageddon is near. It would be plausible that the shop rag application would not be immediate enough, but the misting would. Of course, the misting could be followed up in a week with the shop towel and it's longer effects.

Crazy Roland


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## RDY-B

I think I am sensing some sensitivity--:s---
**To the extent that the "oily" glycerine is also stickier and more likely to creep on the surfaces of the bees and mites, it might have a longer period of activity.**

the sticky part is where the bees air tubes and the applicators airways maybe exposed to a prolonged
reaction from the vapor--dont know sounds sketchy to me---

**We all ought to be careful of our descriptions. They can be unintentionally inflammatory. They can at times even be self-delusional.**

inflammatory--kinda like the kidney stone your body will produce from over exposure to OA--or is it a GALLSTONE-i get those confused --
self-delusional--really i thought of it more as a poetic moment--I did enjoy your post--I will try to be more 
like ABE from now on-- smell the roses not the OA vapor--RDY-B


----------



## DerTiefster

I really should start trying to resist the urge to teach people to think through what they're saying. Let me give an example of what looks like an unrecognized assumption. I'll preface this by saying that I _really_ respect the advice and experience of Roland. His deep-on-deep operational explanations are very interesting to me and I'll be trying to follow his example in some of my colonies this summer. I try to remember that "I know nothing," because I be a newbie, and I _very_ much appreciate the sharing of experience that goes on here.

BUT --


> the misting could be followed up in a week with the shop towel and it's longer effects.


The reason I thought that application development looked desirable for glycerine/OA is that I don't think it's known whether applying it to the wood fibers making up the inner surface of a hive results in shorter-term activity than applying it to the wood fibers of a paper towel placed inside a hive. Roland expressed an expectation that this was so. It may be. Perhaps the glycerine keeps diffusing into the wood and carries the OA with it. But perhaps misting the inside of a hive with glycerine/OA leaves the interior permanently OA enriched. That might even encourage the development of OA-tolerant varroa. I don't know the answer. I'll try not to assume I do. But if you read this thread critically, you'll see a lot of assumptions which are not phrased as "might be" and "perhaps." You might find that finding and listing them can be educational. One such that might be apparent above speaks of a comparison against glycerine/OA on paper towels as


> with regards to a refined process


 I encourage people to listen to what they say and try to identify the unspoken assumptions. They're not easy to identify but can lead to invalid conclusions from hidden circular arguments.

I hope this provided an appropriate mix of entertainment and education. I'll try to shut up now.


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## Oldtimer

DerTiefster said:


> I really should start trying to resist the urge to teach people to think. BUT
> 
> The reason *I thought* that application development *looked desirable* for glycerine/OA is that *I don't think it's known* whether applying it to the wood fibers making up the inner surface of a hive results in shorter-term activity than applying it to the wood fibers of a paper towel placed inside a hive..... It may be. *Perhaps* the glycerine keeps diffusing into the wood and carries the OA with it. But *perhaps* misting the inside of a hive with glycerine/OA leaves the interior permanently OA enriched. That *might* even encourage the development of OA-tolerant varroa. *I don't know the answer*.* I'll try not to assume* I do.


I thought
looked desirable
I don't think it's known
Perhaps
perhaps
might
I don't know the answer
I'll try not to assume 

Not trying to teach anyone to think either, but the argument rests on assumptions / vagueries.


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## msl

> Some have questioned the value of a "mist". I can see a situation arising where, do to lack of due diligence, mite levels got out of control


OAV kills 95% of the phoretic mites and is a proven and approved treatment, the issue is not the phoretic mites

I fail to see the perceived advantage of dragging around a high pressure pump and power source to create a mist, or were any evidence has been presented that it would be more effective then OAV and worth the extra effort, and possibly risks. We all ready know all the safty reasons why people decided not to mist OAD, I assume OAG, (or is it OAST.. ) will be about the same, given its much stronger strength.


swinging back around 



Oldtimer said:


> Well Rader came to the rescue and sleuthed out the thread I was talking about, in it, a link to an article by Randy with this quote
> "We still didn’t know whether the acidity of OA killed the mite through ingestion of acidic bee “blood,” or by direct contact. Ellis and Aliano (2005) performed a clever experiment
> OK, so OA spreads and kills by contact" http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-acid-questions-answers-and-more-questions-part-1-of-2-parts/


yes, but in Randys update in that same link he says



> although studies by Ellis and Aliano demonstrate that it is quite
> toxic to the mite when topically applied. However, there are reports that
> OA syrup fed to bees (when they could be induced to eat it) also killed
> mites.





> The paper by Nozal (Apidolgie 34: 181-188) cited earlier clearly
> demonstrated that OA is absorbed through the bees’ cuticle, and makes its
> way to various organs.





> The effect of the sugar in the OA solution is apparently as a humectant,
> which allows the acid to be absorbed more effectively through the bees
> chitinous “skin.” *Glycerine* will do the same.


we also see


> Marinelli, et al. (2006) tried two paper strips, each containing 1.3 g of OA, inserted between the frames of colonies and replaced 2 weeks later; after another 2 weeks, colonies were checked for mite level. There was almost no effect.


 like mixing OAD with straight water instead of syrup, we see chewing on strips to remove them is not effective with out something to cause it to be absorbed

So the jury is still out, my layman's guess is its both external and internal depending on the application type with the real question is what does adding glycerine to the mix do.


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## DerTiefster

I guess I shouldn't be, but I'm stunned.


Oldtimer said:


> but the argument rests on assumptions / vagueries.


 I explicitly was making exactly no argument. I was stating why I thought some investigation seemed interesting and why there appeared to be open questions -- no clear answer, but the question looked interesting. Is this kind of misunderstanding a common problem among commercial beekeepers?

Ah! perhaps my current tag-line is being misread. It says that I thought I made a mistake once, but it was much more serious than that. No mere case of a simple mistake for me: I was absolutely, flat-out wrong. And then I go and compound it by posting in a commercial beek forum. What fools we mortals be!


----------



## Oldtimer

Over the last few of your posts you were making an argument, or at the least a proposition. About the benefits of fogging a mix of glycerine and oxalic acid, no?

That other views were expressed does not mean you need to take issue with commercial beekeepers, those views could have been expressed in any forum. In fact I don't think most of your ideas detractors are commercial beekeepers.


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## johno

Specialkayme many beekeepers at present treat their bees with OAV over a 3 week period taking maybe 3 minutes per hive. I am sure there would be happy to have a 10 second treatment instead. The best way to find if a system works or not is to try that system and after a trial to weigh up the pros and cons, doing it will yield results talking about it not so much. I would also add that the theory that syrup is necessary in OAD as is glycerin in the shop towel method to enable the OA to gain access to the bees haemolymth ( made a hash of that spelling of bee blood) does not seem to hold true to OAV. So as the remaining brain cell of my enquiring mind continues to enquire I guess I will continue to pursue fiddling with bee associated experiments until that said cell gives up the ghost.
Johno


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## snl

johno said:


> As a matter of fact I have tried the glycerin OA mixture in a fogger and it fogs quite well, there is no odor of FA or OA.


You're telling us that it fogs well, you're not telling us the effect on the mites...


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## Specialkayme

johno said:


> many beekeepers at present treat their bees with OAV over a 3 week period taking maybe 3 minutes per hive. I am sure there would be happy to have a 10 second treatment instead.


OAV has three main down sides: 

One, it only affects exposed mites (as opposed to mites under caps), requiring reapplication over a 3 or 4 week time period. If you assume 40% of mites are exposed at any one point in time, if I treat every 5 days over 3 weeks (4 applications) and each treatment kills 97.5% of exposed mites, at the end of that 3 week time period I've got an ~86% kill rate. Not bad, but still a limitation.

Two, OAV is labor intensive, on two fronts. First, it requires 3-6 minutes per hive (depending on your system). Second, it requires repeated trips to out yards. I don't know about you, but I spend more time driving to outyards and back than I do in the outyards. Assuming I have 20 hives per outyard, and each outyard is 15 min away (I have some SIGNIFICANTLY further than that), a treatment at 4.5 min per hive would amount to a total time cost of 2 hours.

Three, it's dangerous. It requires a respirator, gloves, making sure you aren't too close to the hive when applying, and making sure you aren't down wind either. If you don't get that right, you could be in for a world of pain.

Moving from OAV to OAG-Mist (I don't know if that's what you want to call it) doesn't change downside 1. It reduces downside 2. My math provides that a decrease of application time from 4.5 min to 20 seconds per hive would result in an overall reduction of labor, per apiary, from 2 hours to approximately 37 minutes. It significantly increases downside 3. OA when mixed with Glycerin, becomes readily absorbed into the bloodstream of humans when exposed to the skin (hence Randy's caution of using gloves). You need to get closer to the hive using a mister than you did with an vaporizer. And now you aren't worried about your lungs (respirator), but your whole body becoming exposed to the mist. Get it on your clothes? Better wear gloves to take it off. Get it on your clothes and get in your truck? Your truck is now covered in it. Better scrub it down before you touch it again. All of this becomes very dangerous.

On the flip side, Randy's OA Shop Towel suggestion reduces downside 1 (now over an extended period of time, doesn't just kill exposed mites at one point in time). It reduces downside 2 as much as your mist system (once you get used to mixing them up, I doubt it will take you more than 20 seconds per treatment, both mixing, opening the hive, placing a shop towel, and walking away). It also maintains the same level of downside on point 3. I don't need to worry about standing "downwind" like I did with an OAV or mist treatment. I do need to wear gloves, but I don't need to worry about a cloud of dangerous chemicals wafting around, landing on everything in it's path and causing a very dangerous situation for yourself and anyone else that could come in contact with anything your mist comes into contact with.

I knew a friend that used a FGMO mister (when he thought doing it with mineral oil was effective, which was a common "myth" about 10 years ago) to treat his bees. He'd walk into an apiary, fog his hives, and drink a beer. I watched as that fog went EVERYWHERE! The guy would stand in the middle of this fog cloud. Not a big deal when it's food grade mineral oil. Huge problem if it's OAG mixture and you aren't wearing a biosuit. 

So from my standpoint, why mist when you can shop towel? If it's worth the risk for you, go for it. I'm not attempting to discourage you. I think the mist has potential. Just significantly more risk than potential when compared to a shop towel method. But that's my take, and your mileage may vary. If you think it's worth experimenting, please be careful.


----------



## johno

Snl, read post # 111, Specialkayme, I have worked in many hazardous environments and the greatest advantage one could have is common sense which I realize is not so common anymore, however I will continue to experiment with methods of treatment in the coming year and if I survive I may or may not share the conclusions I make thereof.
Johno


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## Lauri

I'm thinking about making some sugar blocks with OA?

Seems to me the timing of the placement of these blocks is perfect, mid-late November. I'm pretty much broodless early December.


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## jean-marc

First I would like to thank the Argentinians who inspired Randy to further test the oxalic/glycerin strips. It sounds very promising.Personally I would follow Randy's footsteps. Follow somebody who is reporting some degree of success.

Oxalic/glycerin sounds like a recipe for problems. Oxalic/glycerin in a sugar block is another recipe for disaster. The chief complaint of the oxalic dribble methos is that it is somewhat hard on the bees. Typically they have less population come May than a hive that has bee treated with Oxalic acid sublimation. A low dosage in food over an extended period of time sounds real tricky. These are your bees Lauri, but I think I would pass. Why not dribble them when you give the sugar cakes... follow time tested working methods. Not much money in dead bees. The onlt time saved is the labour needed to dribble the bees when you give them sugar cakes. This in my opinion is a false economy.

Jean-Marc


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## msl

opcorn:
3 things to watch.
1 It seems that if its has enuf OA to be effective, the bees don't want to eat it, but may if they have to
2 if they do eat it and end up feeding it to brood there can be issues
3 The glycerin may dramatically increase the hyrodoscopicicy of the sugar block causing it to dissolve faster...could be good, could be bad. 
good luck

johno... I don't want to be Debby Downer, but in re reading my posts I can see it comes off that way, time to turn things around... Specialkayme has very clearly out lined the safty concerns, lets move on then as those without common sense have been given fair warning

ok so lets look at the numbers here

OA subs at 320F , glycerin boils at 554F.. so no issues like we would see with water being boiled off before the OA subs.
Mineral oil boils at 676F, so no issues with the exit temp of the fog vs past fog techniques. 

Using theatrical fogging specks as I can't find any on the propane foggers.. a cheap small fogger will easily do 7-8 cc a min (most will do a lot more), so 2.6 cc in a 20 sec shot and close to a gram of OA a CC at Randy's 1 to 1 mix ... so not the massive overdose I was expecting, in line with OAV realy and seems the dose could be controlled adequately even with a higher output fogger

but here is were it twists... 
1cc yields about 70CF of thick fog at 1m vis, normal fog in open air would be 3x more CF. 
double deep is > 3CF and the dose is spread over 182 cf.. 
So even if you cram it in super thick, it would seem that you may be hard pressed to to deliver any were near an adequate dose. Its worth noting that this is the reverse of my expectation of it being easy to overdose the hive with this method.

I know you said you didn't smell OA or FA but one would assume you wouldn't threw a proper respirator and exposure precautions. With heat it does break down into formic acid, but maybe its a time thing and its out and cooled back down before there is any substantial amount created.


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## Lauri

jean-marc said:


> A low dosage in food over an extended period of time sounds real tricky.
> 
> Jean-Marc


I agree. I see now it shouldn't be ingested. I didn't realize that.


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## Oldtimer

Feeding OA mixed into a sugar block is a bad, bad plan.

If you insist, do it to 1/2 the hives so spring progress of those hives can be compared to non treated (in that way) hives.


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## johno

There is a blog out there on one of the bee forums where the Argie Bargies talked about this method of varoa treatment and one of the things they spoke of was not to leave the OA glycerin mix in the hives over winter as the bees ingested some of it during the winter and there were losses.
Johno


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## snl

Oldtimer said:


> Feeding OA mixed into a sugar block is a bad, bad plan.


I agree. The bees will ingest the OA. That's one of the issues of OAD - bees ingesting OA.


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## jean-marc

Agree with the OT and johno. Protocols have been established with oxalic a long time ago. Now there is a new delivery method and already some want to modify it and go in a direction that has proven to be deadly to bees.

Some Canadians have used the oxalic dribble method for several years now. The chief complaint is that bees are weak in the spring. They dissolve 35g of oxalic in a litre of 50/50 syrup. They dribble a maximum of 50 ml to a strong double. If my memory is correct that would work out to 1/20 of 35 g or 1.75 g, for a double. That is close to the 2 gram dosage when sublimating oxalic acid.

For nucs or singles you are supposed to dribble 5ml for every seam of bees. So typically that might mean 4 seams of bees or 20 ml or 1/50litre x 35 grams/litre = .7 grams, for a respectable nuc. Keep in mind Lauri has many different hive configurations. The dosage is for full depth frames. I think Lauri has some half length full depth frames so dosage for 4 seams of bees gets halved. The point I am trying to make is dosage becomes complex based on size of population. Mixing sugar cakes is not that hard but if you start fooling with .35 grams of oxalic for this nuc and .7 for that one, 1.75 grams for a double... well you get the point. 

Jean-Marc


----------



## Lauri

Thanks for the info guys


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## zhiv9

jean-marc said:


> Some Canadians have used the oxalic dribble method for several years now. The chief complaint is that bees are weak in the spring.


I haven't really noticed this. I thought the weak colony issue had more to do with dribble before shed wintering. The dribble is pretty standard here before wrapping as a final mite cleanup. With outdoor wintering a single OA dribble doesn't seem to have negative effects. I had assumed the problem with indoor wintering was that they wouldn't get a post dribble cleansing flight before being put away and would have the OA in their guts all winter.


----------



## Oldtimer

One dribble has an effect but maybe not overly noticeable to the beekeeper as it's within what the bees can mostly handle. It's 2 or more dribbles that can push things over the edge. Unlike multiple vapor treatments which are a lot less problematic as less of that is consumed, it ends up coating surfaces of the hive and the bees, where it will come in contact with the mites.

Mixing it with a sugar feed block means it will be near impossible for the bees to avoid eating it, and oxalic acid does bad things to a bees digestive tract.


----------



## Bee Arthur

I followed Randy's instructions and made some OA/glycerin towels. I am planning to put them on top of one half of the brood chamber, while putting fondant over the other half. So the towels would be sitting right next to the fondant. Does anyone see a problem with this?


----------



## Ian

I think it's important to note that the towels are intended to be used during times of bee activity. The bees need to be actively moving around within the hive, actively house cleaning where they feel the need to go up and work at removing the towel. 
Same as when dribbling OA .


----------



## snl

Ian said:


> I think it's important to note that the towels are intended to be used during times of bee activity. The bees need to be actively moving around within the hive, actively house cleaning where they feel the need to go up and work at removing the towel.
> Same as when dribbling OA .


I agree you want movement bee movement when using the towels.....I'm not so sure about the moving part regarding OAD. Many times the bees are clustered when doing OAD.


----------



## Bee Arthur

Good point, guys. I'll bag the towels and use them once the temps are consistently warmer.


----------



## Specialkayme

Bee Arthur - what method did you use to squeeze out the excess when making the OA towels?


----------



## snl

I'm sure _*WHEN and IF*_ the EPA approves this, we'll see these "ready to use" OA impregnated glycerin towels sold by the vendors. My guess is someone is already working on this in anticipation of approval.


----------



## snl

Question for thinkers:

Why use glycerin at all? Why not just dissolve the OA into sugar syrup as with OAD and impregnate the towels with that mixture?


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## beekuk

snl said:


> Question for thinkers:
> 
> Why use glycerin at all? Why not just dissolve the OA into sugar syrup as with OAD and impregnate the towels with that mixture?


Bees are less likely to ingest glycerine, so less likely to harm them as much, unlike when mixed with sugar syrup, more so with the quantities of oxalic being used in these strips or wipes, compared to the tiny amount used in the OAD.

There is already a commercially available product on the market using this mixture in some countries, but using cardboard strips....ALUEN CAP.....

https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...ticias/aluen-cap-llega-a-la-calle&prev=search


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## msl

> My guess is someone is already working on this in anticipation of approval.


They are at least all ready working on the patent, but yes I totally see then packaged like babay wipes



> Why use glycerin at all? Why not just dissolve the OA into sugar syrup as with OAD


The glycerin will dissolve more OA than syrup, may cause it to be absorbed by the bee better and won't mold when left in the hive for weeks at a time.


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## snl

beekuk said:


> Bees are less likely to ingest glycerine, so less likely to harm them as much, unlike when mixed with sugar syrup, more so with the quantities of oxalic being used in these strips or wipes, compared to the tiny amount used in the OAD.


I hear you, but does it really matter that you'd lose some bees (due to using syrup mixed with OA on shop towers instead of glycerin) in summer (after you've pulled supers). Syrup is readily available and cheap.


----------



## snl

msl said:


> The glycerin will dissolve more OA than syrup, may cause it to be absorbed by the bee better and won't mold when left in the hive for weeks at a time.


I don't know about that. If you're mixing OA with warm syrup (such as in OAD) it dissolves easily. I don't think mold will be a problem as the bees will probably remove those towels readily. I guess nothing beats trying and seeing.........


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## snl

msl said:


> They are at least all ready working on the patent, but yes I totally see then packaged like baby wipes.


I don't see a patent happening until EPA approval...........


----------



## jean-marc

snl said:


> I'm sure _*WHEN and IF*_ the EPA approves this, we'll see these "ready to use" OA impregnated glycerin towels sold by the vendors. My guess is someone is already working on this in anticipation of approval.


The argentinians already have a commercial product available. I am sure Radar can pipe in. As far as anybody working on EPA approval, that is likely a bit premature IMHO.

Jean-Marc


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## msl

snl said:


> I don't see a patent happening until EPA approval...........


patents are faster and cheaper, no point in spending money to get it aproved if people can knock you off 
heres the pattents for OAG strips
https://www.google.com/patents/WO2015107233A1?cl=en
https://www.google.com/patents/EP3095328A1?cl=en



> If you're mixing OA with warm syrup (such as in OAD) it dissolves easily


yes but to be the = of OAG you would be dissolving 1,000 grams of OA in the L of syrup instead of the 35g. You can only dissolve 143g of OA in a L of water, much less then that in suryp as your starting with only 60% of a L of water


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## Ketuel

I have a question for you. I have a Russian queen since 2014. She has been a very good queen and gave me some beautiful daughters. However the other day when it was 66 degrees here in Franklin nc, I checked the hive bottom drawer and it was full of mites. (wierd considering it is January). What should I do?


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## beekuk

snl said:


> I hear you, but does it really matter that you'd lose some bees (due to using syrup mixed with OA on shop towers instead of glycerin) in summer (after you've pulled supers). Syrup is readily available and cheap.


You would most likely lose all of the bees, that would matter to me.... the trickle method is usually only applied once with a small amount of oxalic, the strips or towels use a large amount of oxalic and are left in the hive for 42 days, over two brood cycles.
Glycerine is also readily available and cheap.


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## Eduardo Gomes

jean-marc said:


> The argentinians already have a commercial product available.


http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?317556-Oxalic-acid-into-strips


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## Ian

The hive needs to be active with OAD 
It's reason if running doubles both boxes need to be treated. The solution needs to be transferred throughout nest. OAD if gone at the wrong times can burn the bees stomachs if they ingest it, reason why overdose causes problems. 

I like the way the OA is admitted through the shop towel. Risk of Ingestion of the OA would be very low . 

Ever merge colonies with the news print method? Notice paper fibers through the entire cluster while they chew through the paper .? An active nest is needed to tear, transfer and clean out the cluster


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## HarryVanderpool

So, if you read my post #81 I suggested an alternative to pressing the towels.
Randy Oliver is almost certain that the formulation would begin crystallization if the solution was not kept heated.
So, pressing is the way to go.

OR, as Rosannarosannadanna used to say:
"Nevermind"


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## Ian

It's how I'm going to set it up :thumbsup:
Appreciate the suggestion


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## HarryVanderpool

Please let everyone how it works out.
It was the "clear rig" for "something else".


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## papa chrud

Ian said:


> ...one thing about a flyswatter, it might involve more work, but flys form resistance to it very slowly...
> 
> If the OA moves through the mite VIA the mites thin cuticle of their pads, physiological adaptation to that probably would be long


10-4 on the fly swatter


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## Oldtimer

OK made up a batch here's how it went. Started out with a 25 kg bag of acid & a 20 litre tub of glycerine and some shop towels. All up cost was just over NZ$200, or around US$150, enough here to treat a heckuva lot of hives.



Just doing 40 towels as a trial at this point so measured off a litre of glycerine and microwaved to "coffee temperature", which took 5 minutes. Weighed up a kilo of OA, notice a kilo takes more room than just one litre.



Added the OA to the hot glycerine. No matter how much I stirred could not get all the OA to dissolve.



Gave the mix another 3 x's 3 minute sessions in the microwave at which point it was pretty hot, and dissolved the OA thoroughly and went clear.



The mix was now 1.7 litres total volume. Put 40 shop towels in a plastic container and poured the mix over them. This is 50 grams of mix per towel.



Only want 25 grams of mix per towel being 12.5 grams glycerine and 12.5 grams OA, so wrung out 1/2 the mix by volume, poured back into the measuring jug to measure.



Put wrung out towels in a plastic container for storage till it's treatment time. Notice that the poured off mix in the jug cooled and solidified.



The whole job was pretty simple it will be easy to do a larger batch to treat 300 hives, will do that closer to the time.


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## Charlestonbee

Thanks oldtimer. I'll be trying this after honey harvest this year. What is the temperature range this is applicable? That's one of my main problems here. Temps stay too high too long.


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## Brian Suchan

Thanks oldtimer!! Will you try doubling the number of towels on your next batch, so you will not have to press them out after the soaking process?


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## Oldtimer

Re temperatures I don't know much more than what's in this thread, or if anyone has even got far enough with this method to know if high temperatures are a problem. However OA is not volatile (doesn't evaporate) in the temperature ranges we are dealing with so probably should be OK. Probably best way is people just give the method a try and report back, a body of knowledge on how best to do it will gradually build up.

Could double up towel numbers although likely I'll just do the 300 odd I need in one hit. The reason for doing it at 50 grams per towel and then wringing them out is simply because that's what Randy did. End of day it probably doesn't matter long as 25 grams of mix ends up on each towel. The stuff that got wrung out will be used on more towels.


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## Brian Suchan

Thanks, you will be the 6 month ahead, go to guy for us over here! Are you planning on doing mite rolls before, and afterwards??


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## Oldtimer

Yes will do some before and after tests just for the sake of this, although I actually haven't counted mites for years I just go by the look of the brood etc plus how long they can go after a treatment. But for this I'll do some before and after washes. 

It's not treatment time here yet, around another month and a half to go.


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## RDY-B

Nice reporting --can you tell me if the towels after absorption exhibited the same
result as the reaming mix that was not absorbed-(that had solidified )--in other 
words are the towels solidifying --like the over mix ---RDY-B


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## hex0rz

OT, this is going to be good! Look forward to your results.


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## Oldtimer

Thanks, looks like I'm the beta tester .

Yes it has solidified in the towels but it's a soft consistancy the towels can be peeled apart. But it may be a bit inconvenient having to mess with that when putting in the hives, which may be the reason the Canadian product is on cardboard rather than towels. I'll do the first batch of hives as early as possible & see how easy it is in practise and will post pics and stuff as I go. And maybe I'll look around for a suitable cardboard to try out also, just as cardboard may be a bit easier and quicker to handle.


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## hex0rz

https://www.amazon.com/Kimberly-Clark-Professional-Scott-Shop-Towel/dp/B00S0LBOQA

These are what i purchase at a bulk store called Costco. 

I wonder if it's possible to dip a whole roll at one time with or without the inner sleeve instead of a sheet at a time. Penetration would be the issue and a proper proportional amount achieved every sheet. Maybe I'll try that idea when i get around to this...


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## Oldtimer

Also if Randy does happen to see this thread be great if you could chip in with any advice!


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## Ian

What were your towel weights after you squeezed them out?


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## Oldtimer

I didn't actually weigh them. But 2kg of mix went in and 1 kg of mix got rung out. Leaving 1 kg in 40 towels, should be 25 grams mix per towel, pack says the towels are 3.8 grams so will be not quite 30 grams total.


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## Oldtimer

Hmm just found out Glycerine is heavier than water. So a liter of glycerine will weigh more than a kilo, so the towels will be a tad heavier. I'll weigh them tommorrow & give you an answer.


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## swarm_trapper

thanks Old timer keep us posted on the mite rolls!


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## johno

Oldtimer, I was surprised when you mentioned that the mixture solidified when it cooled. However when I looked at the original information from the Argentinians in May 2015 their mixture was 600grams of OA to 1 kilo of glycerin and this mixture stayed in liquid form. I wonder if the Argentinians have increased the OA in their mixture.
Johno


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## Oldtimer

Thanks Johno. Been worrying about the solidifying, wondering if the mix had crystalised. Anyway just been there and checked, I rubbed the mix between my bare fingers, no gloves, to see if I could feel any crystals. Feels totally smooth could not detect any crystals at all so think it's good. Best way to describe consistancy would be piont of melt butter, right before it melts, very soft.

Washed right of my fingers afterwards btw, doesn't seem to be any ill effects.

Also weighed the 40 towels, which weighed 1.32 kilos, which works out at 33 grams per towel. This is about exactly right, because a google showed that a liter of glycerine is around 1.2 kilograms, so 33 grams per towel is fractionally over, but close to spot on.


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## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> 33 grams per towel is fractionally over, but close to spot on.


Probably the additional weight of the blue dye.


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## renegadebeeman

something to try ; I' A hobby beekeeper 18 hives 3 yards 20miles apart I use rhubarb leaves on top of frames of brood


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## crofter

Oldtimer would you calculate the volume of the mix to be about one fluid ounce? I am thinking it possible to dip a repeatable amount, pour on a single towel in a warm container, quick squeegee stroke and repeat. Just thinking the towels may be easier to separate if they have not been wrung together. It remains to be seen if the liquid would wick out reasonably well to the margins of the sheets.

Just speculation till I try it. Hung around all day waiting for courier to deliver the glycerin.


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## Oldtimer

Pretty likely yes. I don't know Randy's reasons for the wringing out, but one thing it does do is ensure even distribution of the liquid mix through the whole towel. But as you say, the wringing has stuck them together pretty good and although peeling them apart can be done, it has to be done carefully. 
Randy's main goal up to now may have been to show wether or not oxalic and glycerine on a shop towel actually kills mites, and refinements in method will probably come over time as people experiment.


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## RDY-B

there some old links to--honeybeeworld.com that give a detail process of making
shop towels with vegetable shorting--(crisco ) and menthol for tracheal mites----
this process is the way i intend to do shop towels--but i will cut them in half
and place two half sheets--this is a workable process it has been done with
harder to work with materials than oa and glycerin------to form a towel that has absorbed
the active ingredient---
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/blueshoptowels.htm
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/blue.htm

http://http://www.honeybeeworld.com...ww.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/blue2.htm
hope the links work--I believe i can do this in a metal five gallon bucket to 1-2 gallon batches
and soak towels in warm mixture in till saturated and unroll the towels on the fly in the bee yard
this i believe is a warm weather treatment --not a treatment when bees are dormant--but i dont
know------RDY-B


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## HarryVanderpool

RDY-B said:


> --I believe i can do this in a metal five gallon bucket to 1-2 gallon batches..


Of course you know that anything metal is not recommended when working with acids.
I will use plastic tubs, buckets and clean wooden dowels.
No metal in the process.


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## RDY-B

the metal five gallon bucket is to warm the mixture over a propane flame--
you can t mix the oa and glycerin into solution with out some heat--the 
warm mixture will also allow for better absorption in the rolls of towels-
i understand what you are saying about the acid and metal--im not sure how
strong this acid mix is??? i have heard it refereed to as very strong lemon juice--dont know---
but i suppose i can triple rinse--but even if the bucket is sacrificed--they are cheap to buy--RDY-B


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## crofter

RDY-B said:


> the metal five gallon bucket is to warm the mixture over a propane flame--
> you can t mix the oa and glycerin into solution with out some heat--the
> warm mixture will also allow for better absorption in the rolls of towels-
> i understand what you are saying about the acid and metal--im not sure how
> strong this acid mix is??? i have heard it refereed to as very strong lemon juice--dont know---
> but i suppose i can triple rinse--but even if the bucket is sacrificed--they are cheap to buy--RDY-B


I would be cautious about using an iron pail. If you have ever seen and tasted the results of some acidic foods in iron pots, the memory will tell you that some reaction happened. I wonder if some taste might be imparted that could have an effect? I have some stainless pails that should be ok but try a small sample. With some acids the pure acid is less reactive than a 50 - 50 dilution with water. Sulphuric and hydrochloric reacts enough with plain steel that fumes are not pleasant. Here we will be using a heavy alcohol (glycerine) to dissolve the oxalic acid. Sure getting out of my area of expertise. Richard Crybergs territory!


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## loggermike

I mixed some up last summer in a stainless steel pot on a propane camp stove(outside) . I followed the directions of the South American originators , heating the glycerin first then adding the oxalic. It dissolved easily stirring with a wooden paint stick. No problems at all.


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## squarepeg

for those who don't already have it (updated today):

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-dribble-tips/


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## frogpondwarrior

Scott blue paper towels
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Scott-Shop-Towels-3-Rolls-Pack-75143/202519693


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## Ben Little

Just wondering if using a temp controlled band heater for honey would be another good way to warm up the solution for mixing ? It seems to get hot enough on some models for plastic pails.


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## Ian

From Randy's site, answering many of the questions on this thread;

"I’m currently working on is the best ratio of OA to glycerin, and the best amount per towel. The problem is that the towels don’t want to evenly absorb the optimum amount of glycerin to leave them less “oily” so that the bees will chew at the towels. I’m trying to figure out how to get a full roll of towels to absorb the right amount of solution without the need for squeezing out the excess.

I tried 700g OA in 700ml of glycerin, heated to 160F, and the roll of towels preheated 1.5 minutes in the microwave. I poured the hot solution into a tall, narrow asparagus pot, and set one end of the towel roll into the pot. When the solution had soaked half way up, I flipped the roll over, and placed the roll into a warm oven. After 15 minutes, the solution has still not absorbed to the center of the roll. So I left it for another hour in the warm oven. This proved to be a mistake, since the acid degraded the lower part of the roll into a soft mess.

The 700ml of glycerin also appeared to be too much–leaving the towels too “oily” feeling.

I’m now going to experiment with adding isopropyl alcohol (boiling point 180F) to the solution, and decreasing the amount of glycerin.

Please email me if you figure out ways to improve the method, and I’ll post here."

Harry you should shoot Randy an email about your towel treat comments


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## Roland

Sounds like he needs a carrier, like isopropyl alcohol, but now flammability and ester issues arise.

Crazy Roland


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## RDY-B

**I tried 700g OA in 700ml of glycerin, heated to 160F, and the roll of towels preheated 1.5 minutes in the microwave. I poured the hot solution into a tall, narrow asparagus pot, and set one end of the towel roll into the pot. When the solution had soaked half way up, I flipped the roll over, and placed the roll into a warm oven. After 15 minutes, the solution has still not absorbed to the center of the roll. So I left it for another hour in the warm oven. This proved to be a mistake, since the acid degraded the lower part of the roll into a soft mess.**

that sounds like making a mountain out of a mole hill--this works or it dose not work--are we waiting
for a paten and a producer like mannlake to provide the product--why has this gotten so complicated
sounds like a back pedal to maintain proprietary rights for a financial backer theres alot of spin going on
 RDY-B


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## msl

OA+G for mites goes back 16 years http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/abs/2001/02/milani/milani.html
OA in strips for mites 10+ years https://www.apimondia.com/apiacta/articles/2006/marinelli_apiacta.pdf
OA mixed with glycerin (to make formic) in beekeeping dates back 1889 https://books.google.com/books?id=f...v=onepage&q=oxalic acid bees glycerin&f=false

my guess its about getting it right


----------



## Specialkayme

RDY-B said:


> sounds like a back pedal to maintain proprietary rights for a financial backer theres alot of spin going on
> RDY-B


With all due respect, that's ridiculous. Randy has given so much from the beekeeping community and has asked for nothing in return. He sacrifices alot of his time, money, and hives on research and operates mainly on donations, most of which doesn't even come close to compensating him. He shares everything he finds out along the way: the good, the bad, and the ugly. He has occasionally done evaluations for companies, but he requires an agreement with the company that he has the rights to spread the information he finds, whether it's good or bad.

There is no "back pedaling" as Randy is just trying to make a better product. He has specifically waived any "proprietary rights" and there is no "financial backer." Please verify information before you make accusations, especially of someone who is trying to help you.


----------



## Ian

It would be a hard product to licence and make money off.
Sounds like Randy is actively sending this treatment through the registration process as we speak, to the benefit of the industry.


----------



## dsegrest

Specialkayme said:


> Read Randy's article, got super excited about it. Look forward to using it this year. I probably won't wait till fall though.
> 
> But a thought came across my mind. You add 25 ml of glycerin and 25g of oxalic mixture to a 5g (roughly) shop towel, then squeeze out excess (about 25g worth) until you have 25g of product in towel, weighing 30g each.
> 
> Why not just add 25g worth of the mixture to a shop towel, rather than have to do the whole squeeze deal?


I think the reasons for making the mixture is two fold. # 1 a larger batch gives a more uniform mix. #2 the juice you squeeze out can be re-used. Randy is running a big operation and small savings can really add up.


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## dsegrest

RDY-B said:


> the metal five gallon bucket is to warm the mixture over a propane flame--
> you can t mix the oa and glycerin into solution with out some heat--the
> warm mixture will also allow for better absorption in the rolls of towels-
> i understand what you are saying about the acid and metal--im not sure how
> strong this acid mix is??? i have heard it refereed to as very strong lemon juice--dont know---
> but i suppose i can triple rinse--but even if the bucket is sacrificed--they are cheap to buy--RDY-B


This is a serious acid. Please don't take it casually. Where goggles and gloves. If you vaporize use a gas mask rated for OV.


----------



## Bee Arthur

Specialkayme said:


> Bee Arthur - what method did you use to squeeze out the excess when making the OA towels?


I wore the blue nitrile gloves and just squeezed the towel, weighed the towel, squeezed the towel, weighed the towel, etc., until it got down to 31 grams.


----------



## Bee Arthur

For other hobby beekeepers, this the recipe I've settled on after reading Randy's article and going through the process myself. Also, I found that ingredients for two towels will actually create three treated towels once the squeezed-out solution is re-used.

*Oxalic Acid / Glycerin Towel Recipe*
Wear goggles and nitrile gloves. 
This recipe is for a single application in one hive. Efficacy is about 3-4 weeks, or until the bees remove the towel.
Spread wax paper over the work surfaces.

Ingredients:
25 ml of food grade glycerin.
25 g OA.
1 blue shop towel.

Heat 25 ml of food grade glycerin in the microwave for 30 sec.
Mix 25 g of OA into the hot glycerin, stirring for 2 min.
Reheat the mixture in the microwave for 15 sec.
Continue stirring until clear.
Soak a blue shop towel in warm solution until it’s fully saturated.
Squeeze the solution from the towel until the total combined weight is 31 g. (Discharged solution can be reused.)
Place the towel on top of the brood frames.


----------



## crofter

HarryVanderpool said:


> I think I have a much better solution than soaking and pressing.
> Back in the day, I used something similar when applying "something else". :shhhh:
> 
> Cut a roll of blue shop towels in half so that it looks more like a roll of toilet paper.
> Make a box with a deep pan in the bottom and mount a series of plastic rolls that are in the pan on both ends.
> Above the box on the lid make a roll holder just like a toilet paper holder.
> Make a slot in the lid so that the towel can be threaded through the lid down into the pan and zig-zag back and forth through the glycerin solution and then through a pair of plastic plates that squeegee the excess off of the towel as it exits another slot on the top of the lid. The excess runs of the towel and plates back into the pan.
> You carry this box through the yard and it works just like a tape dispenser.
> You pull on the towel and it comes out coated and you tear each towel off at the next perforation.
> Just like a tape dispenser.
> When the towel runs out just put a new 1/2 roll on and staple it to the tail of the old roll.
> Increasing the amount of rollers that the towel zig-zags through will give added soak time prior to being squeegeed off.
> The big advantage of this method is that you mix up the solution, dump it in the pan, and away you go.
> 
> I have not tried this with glycerin, remember.
> But it was a dream when applying "something else" :shhhh:


I would certainly be baking up something like Harry describes above if I was going to be doing a lot of hives. 

In the meantime I will find a less mechanized method for doing small batches. If a quick dip of the towel appears to pick up about twice the proper weight of mixture I will try alternate stacking of saturated sheets between dry sheets. I am a thinking the liquid will sufficiently self distribute to that degree. We shall see.

Where there is a will, there is a way!


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## gww

I finally put this thread to my favorites on my computer for when it no longer comes up when I hit the "todays post" button. I am glad you guys are doing all the ground work to make it simple for a guy like me.
Also to all that posted pictures. They really do help.
Thanks
gww


----------



## Specialkayme

Thanks Bee Arthur. Very helpful.



crofter said:


> If a quick dip of the towel appears to pick up about twice the proper weight of mixture I will try alternate stacking of saturated sheets between dry sheets. I am a thinking the liquid will sufficiently self distribute to that degree. We shall see.


Having never done it myself, I run the risk of making a fool of myself, but I've read that the mixture can somewhat "solidify" a little once it cools down a bit. With it slightly less liquid, I'm not sure if it will self distribute to the extent you want it to, unless you keep it heated, which could be problematic.


----------



## crofter

Specialkayme said:


> Thanks Bee Arthur. Very helpful.
> 
> 
> 
> Having never done it myself, I run the risk of making a fool of myself, but I've read that the mixture can somewhat "solidify" a little once it cools down a bit. With it slightly less liquid, I'm not sure if it will self distribute to the extent you want it to, unless you keep it heated, which could be problematic.


Some of the instructions I have read (cant remember which was the source) suggest letting the mixture cool to "tepid" before dipping so I dont think it flash freezes. You have a point though about this being a possible concern. I am only visualizing it yet, but see dipping a towel and laying it flat in a warm plastic container, lay a dry one over, immediately dip another etc. 

To wring out the towels in a bunch would also have the same possible temperature concerns. The mix ratios I have seen vary from equal weights glycerine and oxalic acid to a ratio of 60:40. Some locations complicate matters by using volumes rather than weights and some even mix volumes of one ingredient to weight designations of the other. Neither ingredient weighs an ounce per fluid volume ounce. Oldtimer has referred to this. This may affect the temperature the product will gel and cease to flow but perhaps it is not that critical at all.

I received the 15 kg. of glycerine this afternoon but my wife has a honeydew list to check off before I go out to play!


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## cheryl1

Just a thought and I have no idea if it would work .....what if you left the shop towels on the roll and placed a dowel rod attached to a stand through the tube so they can spin. Submerge the towel roll on the dowel rod thingy into a Rubbermaid container filled with your OA/glycerin mix. Clamp a homemade roller onto the side of the tub and feed the first towel into it, then simply roll the rest of them through (like an old time washing machine) squeezing out the extra solution and leaving you with an accordion style pile of towels. Those could go directly into a smaller container with a slit cut in the lid. Pull the last towel back through the slit and then take the whole thing to the yard. Pull the towels out one at a time like baby wipes to put on the hives. 

Engineering isn't my strong suit, so feel free to laugh if this is a ridiculous idea


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## Ian

I like the concept


----------



## gww

Can anybody tell give me a good ideal of a starting quanity of oxalic acid and gycerin to order for small amount of expermenting. I only have three hives right now but have my fingers crossed for a couple of swarms come spring. I don't mind having some extra but am having a bit of an issue with the math of the metric measurement translation to pounds and such. I will probly order off of ebay due to that being about the only place you can end up with free shipping on very small orders.

I just need a hint and don't mind having a little extra but maby not 20 years worth.

Also with the measuring of volume of each in your mixture, just how easy would it be to get too much if you did not weigh the end product after pressing the excess out?

I don't want to buy a scale unless I have no choice.

I am not treating yet and might try this as my first route if I can figure out how to do it with the least risk of overdose.

I have been reading hard and am thinking this treatment might make the best sense as far as maby something that can be done by calender rather then mite count. I do not mind people telling me I am all wet in my thinking though.

Right now I am just seeing if the bees will survive and for how long while doing nothing but wouldn't mind having some stuff around to experment with for when that goes south.
Mostly, I need to figure out how much to order for a starting point.

I am a bit slow but am reading what you guys are doing and hoping to learn.
Thanks
gww


----------



## cheryl1

I don't think you would have to submerge the entire roll. The roll could stay dry but be fed to slide under a couple of dowel rods that are under the solution as you are rolling it out the end. That might work better than trying to get a soggy roll to feed correctly. Pull it down to through the solution then up through the roller and drop it into the final container from there. That's how they make baby wipes. Same concept here. I don't know if the final weight of OA would be correct but you could probably play with adjusting the solution strength or roller pressure until you got what you wanted. Once it's set you could maybe run a whole roll of towels in a few minutes.


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## msl

GWW Buy a scale http://www.harborfreight.com/1000-gram-digital-scale-60332.html don't forget the thermometer so you don't get too hot and start off gassing formic acid fumes 
smaller batches are pickey, larger batches are easier , being off by .1g on 10 gram batch is worse than being off by a gram on a 120 gram batch...

go to the hardware store and get wood bleach
http://www.idealtruevalue.com/store...feed=Froogle&gclid=CJqf6I-P39ECFYRrfgodxiUP0g thats 340 grams
go to walmart or a pharmacy and buy 2 of this 
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Earth-39...ategy=PWVAV&visitor_id=Rg2nBdHx80-K-D8ES74nPQ

That should get you in the range 25+ towels, there is no such thing as "free" shiping one way or another you pay the piper 

so that being said,.... if you can't use your Google Foo to convert OZ to Grams and FL to ML, take another path, going from TF to illegal, unlicensed and experimental mite treatments my not be for you,
mix a nice simple, safe, cheap, proven OAD and treat your hives 
don't get me wrong, I am NOT trying to be rude, but if you can't run the ruff numbers you're not in a position to be mixing this up, OAD is glorified lemonade compared to OAG


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## Oldtimer

Kitchen measuring jugs exist that have both metric and imperial measurements, and most electronic scales flick between the two at the press of a button.

One reason using metric for this type of work is easier is if you want to convert 1 to 10 towels, or 25 towels, you just multiply by 10 or 25. The reason GWW is hung up is the complexity of converting ounces to pounds, or fractions of ounces and fractions of pints.


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## RDY-B

There are alot of GREAT IDEAS of how to dispensence towels--but what seams to be the problem
is from the most reliable poster that has spent time and effort--(old timer post 160) has stated that a re-solidify 
occurred as temps cooled --but i know if you can make a towel absorb grease and place in hives then this 
can be done(referring to the making of tracheal mite towels)--see previous posts--
there have also ben references from the author about towels being to oily--that in it self contradicts
what old timer posted--so this is what i have to say about this--:s 
if the towels are oily or limp--then the amount of alcohol versus the amount of OA is greater--I dont think this 
is a bad thing--(the glycerin is alcohol that has been processed from vegetable fats in a crude form) however its the alcohol esters that are the SOLVENT for the OA----remeber these will avaborate--(under different conditions--your results may vary)
so if the towels resoliidfy perhaps it then it needs to be addressed--Howeverver I believe that the towels 
are a workable substrate--running shop towels needs no introduction----my oa is in route- 20LBS--i am going
to mix and run this as a simple trial of method not means-(that comes later)--but i am going to see for my 
self how this compares to what i already know--RDY-B--going in and going in deep--


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## msl

there is no "complexity"
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=ml+to+fl+oz
enter 75 for 3 hives
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=grams+to+oz
enter 75
he now has the ball park numbers to treat 3 hives and can divide the number of OZ in a container he sees for sale to see how many doses it =
running metric vs imperial doesn't change the multiply by 10 to go from 1 to 10 towels if I need .44 oz per towel then I need 4.4 oz for 10


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## yankeeboy

I tried to find a reason- but perhaps I overlooked it.

What is the purpose of the Glycerin? Why not just dissolve the OA in water and soak the towels? 

I was following another thread where someone said the OA didn't dissolve, but also didn't mention heating the water. Is it because the Glycerin keeps the strips "wet"? where water would dry out?

If thats the case- why not a mineral oil, Lecithin, or propylene glycol if the glycerin is causing issues with solidification. Not a scientist- just throwing ideas around.


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## Oldtimer

Would be problematic in the context of attempting to have the treatment last over 3 - 4 weeks as water could evaporate leaving crystalised acid which will not do the job. With glycerine we have an oily product will get all over the bees and probably everything else.


----------



## Specialkayme

cheryl1 said:


> Just a thought and I have no idea if it would work .....what if you left the shop towels on the roll and placed a dowel rod attached to a stand through the tube so they can spin. Submerge the towel roll on the dowel rod thingy into a Rubbermaid container filled with your OA/glycerin mix. Clamp a homemade roller onto the side of the tub and feed the first towel into it, then simply roll the rest of them through (like an old time washing machine) squeezing out the extra solution and leaving you with an accordion style pile of towels. Those could go directly into a smaller container with a slit cut in the lid. Pull the last towel back through the slit and then take the whole thing to the yard. Pull the towels out one at a time like baby wipes to put on the hives.


My understanding is the OAG mixture absorbs much better into the shop towel when the mixture is hot. 

Not unlike bacon grease. If you cook a pan of bacon, take the pan out, remove the bacon, and wipe up the grease with a paper towel, it absorbs into the towel. When the paper towel cools down, you have a uniform mixture. If instead, you put the pan down and let it cool, then take a paper towel to try and pick up the grease, it "beads" on the top of the paper towel. It doesn't absorb into the towel.

So I think you would have a hard time keeping the OAG mixture in the rubermaid container warm enough to absorb all the OAG while in the bee yard. Could be wrong though.



gww said:


> Can anybody tell give me a good ideal of a starting quanity of oxalic acid and gycerin to order for small amount of expermenting. . . . am having a bit of an issue with the math of the metric measurement translation to pounds and such . . . I don't want to buy a scale . . . thinking this treatment might make the best sense as far as maby something that can be done by calender rather then mite count.


With all due respect, this may not be a very good idea for you. This treatment design is very much in it's infancy. Not perfected in the slightest. Heck, Randy, who invented it, is still modifying it. 

If you aren't comfortable with conversions from ML to Fluid Oz, or Grams to Pounds/Ounces, and you don't own a scale, this could be bad news for you. Not to mention the health risks of mixing this up (I'd strongly recommend gloves and goggles, at the very least). If all of that is a little out of your comfort zone, it would probably be a good idea to let some others tinker with it and come up with a better mixing plan for you. Might take weeks, might take years. But hang in there.

I'd also, as a side note, strongly suggest AGAINST someone in your situation getting comfortable to a "calendar" treatment schedule, rather than a mite count treatment schedule. Doing that will contribute to resistance of OAG by mites, potentially harm the bees by treating when you don't need to (or too late), and doesn't really teach you what you need to know (mite counts, timing, which all depends on your location).

But, take it for what it's worth: suggestions.


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## Ian

Apparently OA dissolves better in glycerin, as compared to water. The glycerin holds it in the solution better. Consistency within the solution is important when treating towels. 
But It is suggested that the oil nature of the glycerin sticks to the bees or mites carrying the OA and distributing it more effectively


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## msl

yes glycerin will dissolve more grams of OA per L then water and that efects how much OA you can get into each towel, But really the key is aids in the absorption into the bees body... sugar does the same, that's why OAD uses syrup and if you try it with plain water it fails. 
OA will not dissolve in mineral oil


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## gww

Thanks to all you guys that have responded to my inquiry. I don't mind being calles a dummy msl, thats why I form my questions as they are, to get a responce to teach me.

I have a metric converter on my phone but thought posting might be a short cut to getting the stuff in hand in a reasonable quanity before I got down to the true studie of actually trying to mix stuff up. I was trying to guage the importance of a perfect measure compared to maby just close enough. Apparrently from the responces, it needs to hit the threshold pretty close.

I have measuring cups that have ml on them and know that people are using measuring spoons to get close to the gram measurement on oxalic when they are vaperizing hives. I was hoping that the mixture being made with the above stuff would be accurate enough.

I am the type of person who would be closer to putting rubarb on top of the top bars of the brood nest and seeing how it went, just so everybody that reponds to me knows what they are dealing with.

I had thought that there was some thought that oxalic was more like a fly swatter then an atibiotic that could be gotten used to and so that is where the calender treatment ideal came from. I am pretty sure that people that have a thousand hives have more of a treatment routine worked out then just counting mites though they may spot count hives in yards. I have read enough even of randys writings to know there is some truth in this.

I bought one of my hives from somebody who doesn't treat and has kept bees for about 20 years and I have been just sorta sitting on them and seeing how long they make it and then if I have a dead out to do an autopsy and then adjust my practices from there. I have a bit of time to figure out how to handle it after that point.

I understand the expermental aspect of this but also like the posibilities of this better then other things out there. If you guys experment and take your hits then my hits to me from expermenting at least are being taken with a base starting ideal that has possibilities.

msl
Thanks for the walmart stuff, that gives me something to play with as well as the other links. 

I never said I was smart but do usually figure out what works for me in the end.

I am interested in the real thoughts on the dangers of resistance and also how much leway the recipe has for not being effective to killing the bees with the mites. I see in this thread that others are talking of adjusting the amounts of the ingredents now.

I don't care about the approved or expermental aspects of the treatment. If it is being expermented with then by me or others, it is still an experment. I do reconize others are smarter in running these experments and the subject matter but I might be more willing to lose a few bees in them expesially since I am running a non treatment experment right now that I am sure many are thinking bees are going to die because of it. I don't see too much differance. I do want to get it right someday but don't mind a little bit of the learnig process till then.

All this being said, I am glad for any comment that is made even if it is to prove I am a dummy, I know of no other way to get to the truth. I can watch every single thing you guys write but if I can't find some way to put it to my situation or fix my missunderstandings of what you guys are saying, I will never learn anything.
Cheers
gww

Ps I can come up with a scale though that was a pretty good link if I didn't have to drive 80 miles to buy one or pay shipping. I was hoping that I could get by with out the scale by just measuring well enough but this does not allow the end squeezed towel weight.


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## johno

I would just remind the readers that OA/glycerin treatment was invented by the Argentinians who I believe are still using 600 grams of OA to a kilo of glycerin and there are some Argentinian commercial beekeepers who use their only this mixture for mite control. This mixture does not solidify when cooled.
Johno


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## msl

gww said:


> I don't mind being called a dummy msl


I was NOT calling you a dummy, please don't take it that way, just suggesting that with your current skill set another method of treatment (oad) might be a better path. 
I am in my 40s and I still write and spell at a 4th grade level, this has caused many a person to call me a "dummy" (especially online)... despite the fact I hold 3 college degrees and was able to read at a graduate level by 3rd grade, not bragging, just making the point we all have different skill sets.



gww said:


> I am interested in the real thoughts on the dangers of resistance and also how much leway the recipe has for not being effective to killing the bees with the mites.


I can't find the source, but IIRR in the past Randy has said the margin between killing mites and killing bees is slim, and only a small shift in the mites tolerance could render OA useless.

edit, found the qoate from june of this year



> "A reference from X said that due to the mode of action of OA, it is impossible for mites to gain resistance to it"
> 
> The above is a good example of someone talking out of their [hat]. No one even knows for sure what the mode of action of OA is against varroa, nor how it is absorbed. And no matter, I can assure you that some mites will be more resistant than others, which implies that some degree of resistance is possible. Remember, there is only a small margin of safety between the dose that kills mites, and the dose that kills bees. That means that varroa only needs to develop a slight degree of resistance until OA is as toxic to the bees as it is to the mites. Rotate treatments!


the take home is clear....if you kill 95% of the mites, those 5% are showing resistance to the treatment, you need to rotate treatments to kill the offspring of that 5% with something elce


----------



## crofter

Yes I think I too saw that idea attributed to Randy; It is the only time I have read anything but the opposite in relation to mortality of bees releative to varroa when exposed to Oxalic acid. I believe he also has said that he thought development of resistance was not likely though. His reporting spans quite a few years and oxalic has been presented in different modes with different consequences to the bees. Now still another mode is being experimented with. I think we have to nail down the exact context of the treatment protocol or we could be taking incorrect interpretations.


----------



## gww

msl
I am only mediocre but in a whole bunch of areas but I just started beekeeping and do not take it as a slight if I really am a dummy at that.

I am in my 50s but did not finish high school and can't spell, I took a differrent rout in life that I don't feel bad about. Not everyone is built for the same thing.

I really move at a very slow pace in every new thing I do and have a tendency to take the long route. I found out a long time ago that you don't have to know a lot but just need to know where to go to get what you don't know.

Thats why I am here. I will ask my questions and keep bugging people till I get enough to move on to the next step. It has worked for me in my life.

So even "I" think I might be a dummy for now no matter what you ment.

I am always just thankful that somebody took the time with me to help a bit (not that I always listen). 

I am new, reading everything and formulating in my mind what is going to work for me.

I am thankful for your responce.
gww


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## squarepeg

randy has made a pdf of his january abj article available:

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/scibeeimages/2016-Beyond-Taktic-pdf.pdf

(note 'beekeeper funded research', if you are helped by randy's work consider making a donation to his cause)


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## gww

Square
I have got the ABJ for the last year and I have a very hard time reading it due to the small font. I read an artical or two at night till my reading glasses make me dizzy. I am about two months behind on finnishing them. Thanks for the link, I can make the fonts on the computer bigger.
Cheers
gww


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## HarryVanderpool

When the towels are saturated, wrung out and piled do they want to stick together after cooling?
If so we may want to interleaf wax paper?


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## squarepeg

gww, next time you log in to abj:

1. click on the 3 horizontal bars in the upper left corner
2. click on 'contents view'
3. click on the article you want to read
4. click on the 'AA' in the upper right corner twice.

it makes the font really big.


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## gww

Square
Thanks
gww


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

squarepeg said:


> randy has made a pdf of his january abj article available:
> http://scientificbeekeeping.com/scibeeimages/2016-Beyond-Taktic-pdf.pdf


Interesting to see that Randy used (with permission/credit) some photos by Beesource member _BernhardHeuvel_. Bernhard had earlier posted those photos and more to this March 2016 Beesource thread: 
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...unit&p=1388906&highlight=empodium#post1388906

Thanks to both _squarepeg_ for the link to Randy's PDF and to Bernhard for the great photos.


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## johno

This thought that if you treat with OA and have a 95% kill that the remaining 5% could or would become resistant is trash. If I swat at 6 flies with my swatter, Kill 5 and 1 escapes it does not become resistant to swatters. The swatter or OA just failed to make contact with the escapees for whatever reason.
Johno


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## Specialkayme

I don't think you fully understand what's happening with an OA treatment Johno. It's impacting the mites very differently than a fly swatter.


----------



## Ian

Specialkayme said:


> I don't think you fully understand what's happening with an OA treatment Johno. It's impacting the mites very differently than a fly swatter.


Nobody knows what is exactly happening. 
The flyswatter analogy is used because OA is viewed as an external physical effect on the mites...so they think. 
I still talk to beekeepers who believe it works systemically through ingestion


----------



## Specialkayme

Ian said:


> Nobody knows what is exactly happening.


I know mites aren't dying from blunt force trauma.


----------



## Ian

If the OA moves through the mite VIA the mites thin cuticle of their pads, physiological adaptation to that probably would be long.
Blunt force trauma or physically burning off their feet, they are dying from the exposure


----------



## msl

johno said:


> If I swat at 6 flies with my swatter, Kill 5 and 1 escapes it does not become resistant to swatters.


it does, your selecting for faster flying flys that are more alert to their surroundings and will spook at a lower stimulus threshold not allowing you to get close enuf to swat. 
You could try to make the same argument about mouse traps, but they have had issues with selective pressures creating trap resistance mice
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1086&context=vpc15



Ian said:


> If the OA moves through the mite VIA the mites thin cuticle of their pads, physiological adaptation to that probably would be long.
> Blunt force trauma or physically burning off their feet, they are dying from the exposure


That's a if, and may only apply to OAV.. and "long" in mite world could be a few years for us. 
Any time you don't kill 100% you are selecting for resistance traits, it is in effect the same as running a bond yard 




> I still talk to beekeepers who believe it works systemically through ingestion


yes, Randy would agree


> The paper by Nozal (Apidolgie 34: 181-188) cited earlier clearly
> demonstrated that OA is absorbed through the bees’ cuticle, and makes its
> way to various organs.





> OA syrup fed to bees (when they could be induced to eat it) also killed
> mites. The fact that OA gets into bee hemolymph suggests that a mode of
> action is likely by mites ingesting low pH hemolymph





> The effect of the sugar in the OA solution is apparently as a humectant,
> which allows the acid to be absorbed more effectively through the bees
> chitinous “skin.” Glycerine will do the same


and as you have stated it also appears to kills topically as well. 
as randy says in the article 



> Since we really don’t know the exact mode(s) of action of oxalic acid upon varroa, there’s no telling how readily the
> mite will be able to evolve resistance. The scary thing is that there’s not much margin of safety between the dose of oxalic that kills mites, and that which kills bees—so if mites develop even marginal resistance, we’d lose oxalic as a viable treatment.



rotate treatments


----------



## johno

In my opinion the 5% you do not get are hidden somewhere where the treatment does not get to.
Johno


----------



## Specialkayme

Ian said:


> Blunt force trauma or physically burning off their feet, they are dying from the exposure


Blunt force trauma and chemical exposure are very different.

Anyway, one can adapt and evolve a resistance to a chemical exposure. I'm not aware of a fly evolving a resistance to a fly swatter, or a human evolving a resistance to a falling anvil. At least not in a few short generations 



johno said:


> In my opinion the 5% you do not get are hidden somewhere where the treatment does not get to.
> Johno


I don't think much of the scientific community, or the mites that evolved resistance to Apistan, or CheckMite, would agree.


----------



## Oldtimer

HarryVanderpool said:


> When the towels are saturated, wrung out and piled do they want to stick together after cooling?
> If so we may want to interleaf wax paper?


Yes they do. But wax paper between won't work during wringing out it will stop the mix evenly spreading out between towels.



msl said:


> I can't find the source, but IIRR in the past Randy has said the margin between killing mites and killing bees is slim, and only a small shift in the mites tolerance could render OA useless.


There seems to be some contradiction here, might be context or something. But elswhere Randy said "Ellis and Aliano found that OA is about 70 times as toxic to mites as it is to adult bees—which is a much greater spread than with either thymol or formic acid".

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-acid-questions-answers-and-more-questions-part-1-of-2-parts/

Could be some reasons for this seeming contradiction, such as one refers to a topical application, the other refers to it being ingested, or some other reason, maybe. I do know OA is pretty bad for bees if ingested into the digestive tract.

Me, I'm going to go with the 70 times more harmful to mites than bees, because in my own use of OAV I have deliberatley overdosed massively just to see the effects, and other than the odd bee that gets burned, don't get any bad effects, long as the OA doesn't get into the food. I'm careful about using OA in a hive with lots of new unsealed nectar in the brood area, that can turn bad, in terms of killing newly hatched eggs when they get their first feed.

GWW, I haven't noticed much correlation between a persons performance at school and their success as a commercial beekeeper among the ones I know. Definately there are some guys with excellent "school smarts" who are able to apply that with advantage to their business, but I also know very competent commercial beekeepers who were considered failures at school. "bee smarts" uses a different section of intelligence when some people get into bees they just never really can open a hive and fully understand what's happening and what's needed, and others can. And this ability does not relate to how well someone did at school.


----------



## gww

Oldtimer


> GWW, I haven't noticed much correlation between a persons performance at school and their success as a commercial beekeeper among the ones I know. Definately there are some guys with excellent "school smarts" who are able to apply that with advantage to their business, but I also know very competent commercial beekeepers who were considered failures at school. "bee smarts" uses a different section of intelligence when some people get into bees they just never really can open a hive and fully understand what's happening and what's needed, and others can. And this ability does not relate to how well someone did at school.


Thank you for that. I think only time will tell. I am not too good inside the hive yet. I can't even sit at the water hole and tell the ones with full abdomem like some say they can and I can't tell the drones from the workers just by looking though I can tell the differrence in the capped broods.

I also don't think the reason why something works means as much to me as the just know it does work and so look more for do this step and it will accomplish that. I am a big copy cat of doing what others with imagination have come up with that works. I don't have the imagination but do have the action.

I usually in the end get done what I need to do but will never be a true inovator.

My skill set usually lets me survive even if I don't really add much to help others.

I really like your picture totorials on this and also on your queen raising. A guy like me gets a lot of use out of a guy like you.
Thanks
gww


----------



## minz

squarepeg said:


> randy has made a pdf of his january abj article available:
> 
> http://scientificbeekeeping.com/scibeeimages/2016-Beyond-Taktic-pdf.pdf
> 
> (note 'beekeeper funded research', if you are helped by randy's work consider making a donation to his cause)


Thanks for posting. It appears that the 4 strips per box was the silver bullet- but not practical due to man power cost and hazmat removal not practical. A guy running under 2 dozen hives may just have to find himself collecting egg cartons! (yes it is the commercial forum I know):lpf:


----------



## HarryVanderpool

I asked Oldtimer, "When the towels are saturated, wrung out and piled do they want to stick together after cooling?"



Oldtimer said:


> Yes they do. But wax paper between won't work during wringing out it will stop the mix evenly spreading out between towels.
> 
> .


I won't be wringing out millions of towels; believe me.
I have a couple of processes in mind to do that task.

But OT, are you saying that if you wring out the towels and stack a pile of them that they stick together?
How bad? will they separate at all? Do they want to tear?

Lets say I soaked and wrung out (which I am not going to do) 20 towels, set them in a stack and put them in a 2 gallon ziplock bag; would they separate the next day?
If so, try placing a sheet of wax paper in between and see if they can be separated easier the next day.

*Remember everybody; we are in the R&D phase.*
In R&D you are looking for all of the little bits and pieces of information that will LATER be used to formulate a procedure.
I have a couple of really cool and fast solutions in mind but am working in a vacuum of information a this point. 
Every little tidbit, good or bad is very valuable in designing the end solution. 
I have done a lot of R&D and can tell you that we are working in the "blind zone" at this point.

We should have a lot of fun with this as it all comes together.


----------



## gww

Is this treatment a hot weather only treatment where out side temps need to be watched?
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

HarryVanderpool said:


> are you saying that if you wring out the towels and stack a pile of them that they stick together?
> How bad? will they separate at all? Do they want to tear?


Yes they stick together. They can be peeled apart, but slowly. Pull them apart carelessly they may tear.



HarryVanderpool said:


> Lets say I soaked and wrung out (which I am not going to do) 20 towels, set them in a stack and put them in a 2 gallon ziplock bag; would they separate the next day?
> If so, try placing a sheet of wax paper in between and see if they can be separated easier the next day.


Went back and had a look at the ones I stored and they are still seperating just as easy as when they were newly made. The paper between them after they are wrung out may work it's something I certainly thought about, only issue that sprung to mind is that when peeling them apart some of the mix is going to stick to the paper. This could be a non issue if the paper is also put in the hive. But I'm just thinking all this adds time, having to pre seperate and then re stash the towels with something between. It's probably doable, but I'm hoping there is a better way. The other issue is the towels need to be handled with gloves, but seperating them on site means you either will get OA and glycerine mix on the outside of the hive when handling, unless you keep taking the gloves on and off. What I'm thinking about doing is drive into the yard, put gloves on and pre seperate enough towels, then take the gloves off and work the hives, and use some kind of tool to pick up and apply the towels.



gww said:


> Is this treatment a hot weather only treatment where out side temps need to be watched?
> gww


At this stage it does not seem so, but more experience may be needed to definately know. If applying in cold conditions the towels would have to be placed where the cluster will find it annoying enough to feel they have to move it. Above a tight cluster in cold may not work.


----------



## gww

Oldtimer
http://teca.fao.org/discussion/varroa-jacobsoni-natural-methods-fight-it?page=3

One post from the above link.


> cardboard strip with O.A. during winterDear Giovanni and Ernst
> Hope you are fine !
> We have passed winter with good results of our Cardboard Strips Soaked into a Solution of Oxalic Acid in Glycerol (Food Grade).
> We used it as we described.
> We have had very good results adding strips in March up to April 20 with good temperatures. These colonies arrived at the beginning of the current season without varroa.
> BUT we received several advices from beekeepers which found different levels of bee death because adding strips in coolest areas of the South Hemisphere at the end of April or during May. Then it is necessary not to add strips close to winter season.
> IT SEEMS that with low temperatures the bees are sucking the wetted strips looking for water and they dying.
> Another reason not to add strips close to winter to late in autumn is that the strips will restrict the brood area like a wall at the beginning of the next beekeeping season. Then if we check there are not varroa in the colonies at the end of winter it is better to wait up to the time to add suppers to add some strips if it is necessary.
> Regarding other essays, some friends in the South of Chile they are ussing it right now. We are waiting also for the results of some studies carried out recently in Italy for a couple of friends there.
> Best regards
> Fernando


I think they are talking about the same thing and this was the reason for my question.
Thanks
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

Thanks, very interesting. Once there's a few hundred or a few thousand beekeepers using this method we'll get pretty solid answers to all these scenarios.


----------



## johno

If there is going to be a difficulty in separating the towels when cool due to the thickening of the mixture I guess one could decrease the ratio of OA to glycerin until you get to the desired consistency. If the Argentinians are doing fine with a ratio of .6 to 1 it looks as if there is quite a bit of lee way in the OA content.
Johno


----------



## gww

Johno
It looked like randy was going to experment next time in the opposite direction of putting even more oa into less glycerin.

I get this for his almost last statement from the artical in the link that squarepeg provided. I did think that randy also seemed to be saying that there was a lot of latitude on the mixture and too me and my earlier question, maby exact measurements were not as critical as is thought. It seems the deciding factor is the towels being dry enough for the bees to want remove it.
Cheers 
gww


----------



## gww

Oldtimer
When you soaked your towels, did it seem like they would pick up enough to just dip them or did you actually have to saok them. If a guy could just dip them really quick and then lay them on plastic screen cut close to the same size and then just put something heavy on them like in the picture in randy's artical, Maby they would still be able to be dried compared to using something like wax paper and yet still be seperated easily. Then again, they may stick to the screen. I would also think that even if wax paper was used between the towls that with weight on them plus time that they would still drain. I know it is not the same but I have gotten a lot of juice out of 5 gal buckets of pickle slices buy putting them in a sink and placing a heavy flat rock on them and then letting them sit. It takes time with the weight for it to work. So if you could just unroll the paper from the roll through the solution and accordian them with something inbetween the papers and if it would pick up enough solution, you could put weight on the finnished accordian and maby have a whole roll worth of towels ready to go on the hive with only handling it once.

If it does pick up solution well/instaneouslly, the earlier tape dispencer ideal seems pretty good too.
gww


----------



## BeeCurious

Can't a quantity of towels be placed in a gallon Ziplok bag and the correct volume of the oxalic mixture poured into the bag.... Without "wringing out" the towels, the liquid can saturate the towels and be "squished around" inside the bag, possibly resulting in a more uniform distribution of the mixture throughout the quantity of towels. 

Wringing out a wad of towels would present a wider variety of weights (per towel) in my opinion. 

Large Ziplok bags, with the exact volume seems much easier to me...


----------



## Oldtimer

Yes, but a bunch of mix is going to be stuck on the side of the bag.

GWW maybe it would work, guess we'll know when someone tries it. When I poured the hot mix onto the towels it was reasonably runny and soaked in immediately. I was surprised to hear there was so much difficulty getting it into a towel roll, I thought with a bit of massaging it would have worked it's way in pretty easy. If I can get a roll I'll try it. Pre heating the roll as per Randy would help cos once the mix cools it's not going to go in.


----------



## gww

Oldtimer
Thank you for the responce.
gww


----------



## Harley Craig

Oldtimer said:


> Yes, but a bunch of mix is going to be stuck on the side of the bag.
> 
> GWW maybe it would work, guess we'll know when someone tries it. When I poured the hot mix onto the towels it was reasonably runny and soaked in immediately. I was surprised to hear there was so much difficulty getting it into a towel roll, I thought with a bit of massaging it would have worked it's way in pretty easy. If I can get a roll I'll try it. Pre heating the roll as per Randy would help cos once the mix cools it's not going to go in.



I would think that rolled tight in a roll that it would act like a filter. even though the OA is disolved it's still somewhat of a suspended solid I would suspect. In a roll, the center probably has more Gl than OA I wonder if one could check this with litmus paper?


----------



## chazman

BeeCurious said:


> Can't a quantity of towels be placed in a gallon Ziplok bag and the correct volume of the oxalic mixture poured into the bag.... Without "wringing out" the towels, the liquid can saturate the towels and be "squished around" inside the bag, possibly resulting in a more uniform distribution of the mixture throughout the quantity of towels.


BeeCurious, I liked this idea, and wanted to try it on my first batch. I am not in need of a large number of towels so this might not be practical for a commercial beek.

I wanted to try and make 10 towels, but to fit in the bag I needed to cut them in half. So each hive would get TWO half towels.

Materials:
1 Gallon size Ziplock bag
10 Shop Towels cut in half (20 pieces in the bag)
Measured 125 ml of Glycerin (12.5g per towel x 10 towels)
Measured 125 g of OA (12.5ml per towel x 10 towels)

Heated OA and Glycerin and mixed until clear.

Here is the setup








Put the towels cut in half in the bag








Poured the mixture of exactly the amount of required OA and Glycerin for 10 towels








Squished it all around to get completed absorption in the towels








Flattened the towels back out and removed all the air and pressed flat for storage.








There was very little mixture that was not absorbed by the towels. With enough air in the bag during the squeezing phase you could really get at it to spread the mixture evenly, and there wasn't any mess. I didn't even get anything on my gloves.

With the ziplock you could also easily remove the air so that they would be sealed until use.

I think it worked pretty good if you ask me. Only mixed what I needed, and it is packaged and ready to use. The gallon size Ziplock probably could have handled a lot more towels, Maybe as many as 50. Squeezing the mix around would get harder the more you add though.

Thanks for the idea BeeCurious, and most of all, credit for all of this work goes to Randy Oliver. Please donate to him if you feel you benefited from his research at http://scientificbeekeeping.com/



Chazman


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## Ian

Hey that looks slick
And so very practical 
Thx


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## gww

Chaz
Now the question is can you get them out of the bag and seperated from each other. I also wonder if the length of time in the bag will make the towels mushy like randy said it did to the roll. A further report when you actually use them later would be greatly appretiated, at least by me. I love you guys that take pictures. This was a very nice presentation. Thank you
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

Nice work Chazman might be a better way than what I did.


----------



## BeeCurious

chazman said:


> BeeCurious, I liked this idea, and wanted to try it on my first batch. I am not in need of a large number of towels so this might not be practical for a commercial beek
> 
> There was very little mixture that was not absorbed by the towels. With enough air in the bag during the squeezing phase you could really get at it to spread the mixture evenly, and there wasn't any mess. I didn't even get anything on my gloves.


I'm glad it worked out. It seemed like a more tidy, and accurate method to me... 

Could the towels be folded instead of being cut? 

And could a vented bag be gently heated in a microwave to help to fully moisten the towels? 

Would transporting the saturated towels in an insulated box (cooler) with some heated water bottles help with separating the towels in the bee yard?


----------



## chazman

BeeCurious said:


> Could the towels be folded instead of being cut?


Probably as long as you were only doing 10-20 towels, more than that would be like folding a telephone book.



BeeCurious said:


> And could a vented bag be gently heated in a microwave to help to fully moisten the towels?


When I checked the bags this morning that I put in the refrigerator, the stack of towels in the ziplock were very rigid. They solidified at refrigerator temperature, as expected. So I think a warming in the microwave or by some other method would be REQUIRED in order to peel them apart or use them in any way.


----------



## BeeCurious

chazman said:


> Probably as long as you were only doing 10-20 towels, more than that would be like folding a telephone book.


I would fold them individually.... to have a uniform stack.


----------



## crofter

chazman said:


> Probably as long as you were only doing 10-20 towels, more than that would be like folding a telephone book.
> 
> 
> 
> When I checked the bags this morning that I put in the refrigerator, the stack of towels in the ziplock were very rigid. They solidified at refrigerator temperature, as expected. So I think a warming in the microwave or by some other method would be REQUIRED in order to peel them apart or use them in any way.


Chazman, I am glad you posted up this method. The first moves I had in mind to try would not have been near as easy. You _blazed a trail_ so to speak.

I just finished doing a batch of 10 towels. I had a ziplock big enough to leave the towels whole but the mix is viscous enough not to move easily. I heated a stoneware cookie sheet to 150F and placed the bag with the sheets in the warm cookie sheet, lifted five sheets up a bit and poured the liquid in the middle. Zipped the bag and worked it over with a 6" paint roller spreading the juice out with only a few bits of corners a bit dry.

That amount of mix, 250 ml is spot on for 10 towels. I found the oxalic batch I have, (packed) weighed very close to the same as water, so a ml will be close to a gram. I weighed it for mixing purposes. though. The glycering weighed 150 gms for the volume of 125 ml. which agrees with Oltimers figures.

I used a temperature of ~ 150F to dissolve the OA which is aprox. the 55 - 58 C. of other recommendations.

If I was going to do a large number of sheets I would look at something more like what Harry proposed. I think you would have to heat the container though. I did not save any liquid mix to see what consistency it would be a room temperature, but the stack of sheets are getting stiff and they are still a bit warm

No pics of spreading the liquid inside the zipped up bag with the dry paint roller working over the outside.


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## gww

Crofter
I think if a guy could leave just the corners dry, it might be much easier to seperate the towels at a later date. I can't see enough surface area being lost on the towels to really effect the treatment if some portion of them were dry. I have been wrong before though.
Cheers
gww


----------



## chazman

Randy Oliver asked for a few additional pictures this morning to see the "Oilyness" of this method/ratio. So I thought I would add them to this thread too.

When taking them out of the refrigerator they were very stiff from the solidification of the glycerin. So i took the Ziplock bag and put them in the microwave for about a minute (timing would depend on the particular microwave), until they warmed up.

I found it was nice to have them all sealed up in a bag when putting them back in the microwave as to not make a mess. This seemed almost necessary if they were made ahead of time like I did.

Once warmed up I pulled them out of the bag and they peeled apart very easy. Randy had mentioned in one of his articles that they could get mushy and not pull apart very easy. 

Here are two pictures I just took to see:

















Chuck Cook
Jacksonville, FL
Zone 9a


----------



## crofter

gww; that sounds like a reasonable proposition. It is a bit tricky to herd the fluid exactly where you want it without having the towels bunch up or slide over one another. I may try later with doing a sheet at a time in the open on a heated non absorbent surface using a wetted roller. Maybe what you gain in working with 10 sheets at a time you give up in difficulty of getting even coverage.

The liquid appears totally free of any solids but it does not easily flow through the bundle. Probably similar or a little thicker than honey. I did separate and restack the sheets before sliding them into the ziplock bag. They should be less tangled up that way than they would be the way you just finished kneading them!


----------



## Lauri

I had posted previously a thought about making OA sugar blocks, it was pretty quickly brought to my attention ingestion of the mix is hard on the bees. 

That idea was for _overwinter application._

I had already made up a batch of the 'hot' sugar mix, have it sitting in a 5 gallon bucket, and have been thinking about what to do with it. It's 25 g of OA in 25# of sugar with cider vinegar as the liquid for moisture, 1 cup glycerin for better disbursal.

If divided into 25 portions, each would be the equivalent of a very weak strength dribble solution for one deep box.

What if the moist sugar was rubbed into older tough comb and allowed to harden, then placed in the broodnest during the time of year bees would not consume it, but would haul it out as trash? 

Placement would be perfect, the hardened sugar would take several weeks to haul out completely. 

The trick would be the reliability of the bees hauling it out and not consuming it. Timing would probably be pretty specific. 


Like everyone else, I'm just throwing ideas out there to try to improve or determine the best, most consistent, generally low labor way to deliver OA in the most effective location.
Randy mentions the bees seemed to thrive in the high acidic conditions. The use of cider vinegar _could_ possibly reduce the amount of OA needed and certainly contributes to the acidic nature of the mix.


----------



## Oldtimer

Rather your bees, than mine.

Worst scenario if some of it gets ingested, is the hive is killed, 25 g ingested is enough. Less bad scenario is a smaller portion is ingested and only a few bees are lost plus bee larvae come spring. Good scenario - can't see one.

There are 2 phases of having a good idea. The first phase is having the idea, the second phase is figuring out what unintended consequences there may be that need to be considered by carrying out the idea.

If you have to do this, and it appears to have "worked", before declaring success, look for a larger ratio of eggs in the brood nest than what there should be compared to other larvae. that's the tell tale that young larvae are being killed soon as hatching (or emerging for purists) from the egg.


----------



## Lauri

I appreciate you words of caution Oldtimer. I'm not about to do anything foolish or on a large scale.

25 g mixed with 25# sugar( My current available mix) divided into 25 'doses'= about 1 gram per frame/per brood chamber IF 3 full cups of the mix were used. A volume that which would fill one side only of a deep frame.

A half frame ( or 1/2 g) as a starting point seems about right.

A weak dribble strength is 35 g per 20 hives, 1.75 g per dose. High dribble strength is 60 g per 20 hives or 3 g per dose. I assume Randy's OA treatment table for 'hives' is for single deeps. Of course a dribble is in and out quickly. Different than what I am proposing.

Under dosing in't good ether if you are concerned about developing resistance.. But from what I read, there are still questions about the way OA actually works and possibility if developing resistance is still in debate. 

It's clear the OA/glycerin mix is still in development both in potency and delivery. Like a lot of other beekeepers, I'm interested in working with it.


----------



## beepro

I have a concern about using OA that the bees can ingest and then put
the remaining in honey or sugar syrup then cap the honey cells. Sugar water + OA is a NO NO!
I like the shop towels idea better. I'm sure the sugar water and oa idea is mentioned if it is a workable solution already.
Since you have so many hives now have you consider doing I.I. with the mite biting/mauling bees?


----------



## RDY-B

this is a good point of diversion back to essential oils and there mode of action---
winter green oil--almost need a hazmat to get a gallon shipped for syrup intervention
oxalic acid is delayed on my part because the simple people at amazon shipped
20lbs through the postal system---the laugh on me ---:lpf:--RDY-B


----------



## Bkwoodsbees

I think sawdust mixed with glycerin and oa would be easier to work with. You would put them on top bars like a pollen patty. You could also make them ahead of time and keep them separated by wax paper. To easy to be effective? Robert


----------



## beecavalier

Chazman, Lauri, Bkwoodbees...love the way your brains work.


----------



## hex0rz

Bkwoodsbees said:


> I think sawdust mixed with glycerin and oa would be easier to work with. You would put them on top bars like a pollen patty. You could also make them ahead of time and keep them separated by wax paper. To easy to be effective? Robert


Only one way to find out!


----------



## Vance G

That would spread the OA effectively but the sawdust would be out of the hive in days wouldn't it? That might defeat the time release function of the shop towel. Do it and let us know but I will listen to Mr Oliver who is way smarter than I am.


Bkwoodsbees said:


> I think sawdust mixed with glycerin and oa would be easier to work with. You would put them on top bars like a pollen patty. You could also make them ahead of time and keep them separated by wax paper. To easy to be effective? Robert


----------



## Bkwoodsbees

Vance, if the weight of sawdust and shop towel is the same and the bees only carry small pieces of either out at a time , then the time involved to carry out shouldn't be that much different.


----------



## crofter

I think it takes longer for them to tug the towel apart and they get more on themselves in doing that, rather than gingerly picking up a grain of sawdust in their mandibles. The idea is *not* to make it too easy for them!


----------



## Vance G

What he said.


crofter said:


> I think it takes longer for them to tug the towel apart and they get more on themselves in doing that, rather than gingerly picking up a grain of sawdust in their mandibles. The idea is *not* to make it too easy for them!


----------



## Bkwoodsbees

It is more than time that it takes to carry out. It's about getting the dissolved oa on the bees. Only testing will determine which is better. If sawdust makes more of a mess and gets more of the glycerin/oa on more bees then it would be better and the same could be said if the shop towel does. It's a healthy discussion and lots of minds are thinking and that's a good thing. I will order my glycerin this weekend and give it a go. Robert


----------



## Oldtimer

Treatment time here is still a few weeks away but I wanted to try on a few hives before doing them all so went out this morning and did one site as a learning / debugging thing. Did alcohol washes on the first hives, unfortunately the mite levels atm are still low, nearly all hives tested exactly the same at 3 mites per three hundred bees so stopped bothering to test after the first dozen hives. Interestingly the 3 hives with claimed TF queens had no mites. No other hives had no mites so I consider that significant and will be talking to the guy who supplied me those queens.

I do have another site which does have a more serious mite issue including some DWV, which would be a better test. So will get out there and do that one also if time permits.

First pic, here's my buddy seperating out the towels before opening the hives, so once we started opening hives the towels would be loose and could be picked up easily with 2 sticks and put on the hives.



Put the towels on folded in 1/2. Not sure if this is best but opened right up they looked kind of thin, just worried the bees will chew them out too fast.



For 2 brood box hives I just felt like maybe one towel wasn't enough so put a towel on top of the secong box also.




The whole thing hinges on the towels lasting around 3 to 4 weeks, so I'll be checking progress in around 10 or 12 days and will post some more pics then. 

Also, just as an aside, found this little critter in the alcohol wash. It's body is the same size as a varroa mite, and it came from a sample of bees scraped off a comb. So, who says pseudoscorpions cannot live in treated hives LOL .


----------



## Ian

Is the random weight measure of the towels a consistent 30g?


----------



## Oldtimer

Oops, that's one thing I forgot to check.

I'll be doing more, and will check and post it at that time.


----------



## Ian

I'm just curious if the solution absorbs evenly and hold in the cloth evenly after storage. 
Did the corners dry out and crystallize ?


----------



## Oldtimer

No crystals, appearance wise they looked good and even. But the scales will tell, good you brought it up.


----------



## Oldtimer

Made up the other 360 towels today and learned a couple things. The temperature to dissolve the OA in glycerine at 1 to 1 is 150 f, that's with the OA in the mix. And the boiling point for the dissolved mix is 225 f.

Other than that, technique. Did the first batch with 160 towels but only a little more than the needed amount of mix thinking I could work it in. But found it was a lot of messing around and swapping towels around to get them evenly coated. So the others I did in batches of 50 with plenty excess mix, and wrung each batch of 50 by hand to the desired weight, that worked quite well.

Going to let them sit for a week or two then will seperate out and individually weigh a few towels to see how even they are.


----------



## Ian

Is the novelty wearing off yet? Lol


----------



## Oldtimer

That will depend on how good this works at killing mites. Will get an initial idea when testing the treated hives in a month although the already low mite levels going to make it a bit hard to tell. But after that I'll want to see the treated hives go through winter and be in good shape next September.

Making the 360 towels was not too much work but hanging around waiting for the microwave was the main issue. If someone was going to make a few thousand of them would probably have to dedicate a day, or, get some better way to heat a large quantity than a microwave. The mixing etc is pretty quick.


----------



## RDY-B

IAN--we are all trying to get in the almonds--slogged down--whether is breaking
big push coming saturday--at-least 5 days no rain--need to focus on what pays
the bills as-well as the dividends---
this brings up another thought abought the treatment--colony strength---coming out 
of almonds the bees are so strong-is there a thinking of the time frame a colony takes to 
destroy a shop towel---During spring brood blast-coming out of almonds--or not just
well managed bees--the natural instance is to burst forward--traz towels are very short lived
bees chew them up in a week---later in the fall not so much--and they tend to start propelling the towels
I will push forward--but i am thinking it is not a one size fits all application--
I am also considering that half a towel--(a roll that has been cut in half ) and has not gone through
the process of being rung out or pressed -would cary the same weight as a full towel treated in the manner RANDY uses as a starting point---half towels are the best way to manipulate absorption--this is already
been the successful way to get a working method for blue shop towels---
the other thing i want to get is this seams to be a 1-1 ratio--25ml--25 grams--i know it is giving as apples
to oranges-(weight --volume ) but still i think it can be considered that these are almost close enough for
presses beekeepers --so can i go by the-age old theory a pint is a pound-the world around
in other words can a person use a quart jar and mix a quart of glycerin to a quart of OA---
what a simple thing that would be--I will push forward --its been raining--gota pay bills first
--- RDY-B


----------



## johno

Oldtimer, funny thing that the 6 hives that I tested with 21 days of OA/ glycerin and then was not happy about the results forcing me to do a 14 day cycle of OAV. Well they are by far the strongest hives in the yard of 20
Johno


----------



## Ian

RDY-B, I think a good strategy would be to make up the towels on the off season so that your not worried with workload to mix towels during busy times. I would assume the OA glycerin towel much woukd keep well in a sealed container. 

Just some feedback on your comments, I think spending the time to soaking the towels probably is better than looking for a half cut roll soak method, I think it's important to get even distribution of the OA crystals throughout the towel. 
Sheep dip is a totally different medium and even if there are application similarities, I don't think they should be viewed as the same


----------



## msl

RDY-B said:


> -
> I am also considering that half a towel--(a roll that has been cut in half ) and has not gone through
> the process of being rung out or pressed -would cary the same weight as a full towel treated in the manner RANDY uses as a starting point-


Its not the weight of the dose per hive thats the issue, its the amount of solution per square inch, the towels are pressed because if they are not there is too much mix and the bees don't chew on them.


----------



## Oldtimer

Oh that's dissapointing Johno. Did you use the shop towel with 50/50 OA to glycerine method, Argentine product, or what?


----------



## johno

Oldtimer I used the Argentinian formulation for the trial on 6 hives using kraft paper on the top bars of the 3 mediums at the same time that I did a series of OAV on the rest of my hives. That was in late July into August 2016 at the end of August I sampled 3 of the six and a bunch of the rest. I found the OAV treated hives were all below2% whereas the 21 day treatment of the kraft paper hives had above 3%. So that's when I did 4 more OAV treatments on those 6 hives and did no further checks on them. Now those six hives are booming and are stronger that most of the others. So my thoughts are that a 21 day treatment would not be as good as a 42 day treatment, 2 brood cycles instead of 1. I also treated all the hives when broodless in late November and again in December.
Johno


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## Oldtimer

Good info Johno, and yes I'm sure you are right a longer treatment period would make a huge difference. There's probably a lot of refinement needed to get this method working right.


----------



## Oldtimer

Seperated out and weighed a bunch of the latest batch of towels, the target weight was 30 g per towel. One was 26 g but the others were between 27 g and 32 g with probably 1/2 of them right on 30 g.


----------



## gww

Oldtimer
Good on you for doing the hard work of measuring. I am guessing that now that you know, none of us will have to reinvent the wheel. I do wonder about johno's observation on the lenght of the treatment. I do not discard his observations or mite counts during the prossess and that they seem to be his strongest hives. I just want to add a factor that might should be part of the obsevation. In randy's paper it seemed to me that he thought the bees with the towels and strips were doing better cause they seemed to thrive in the acidic conditions of the hives with the strips in. This may have nothing to do with mite but maby something to do with the bees doing better.
Just thought I would throw that out there. Thanks for taking the time to weigh and report your findings.
gww


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## Oldtimer

Good points. There is still a lot of work to do on this.


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## Richard Cryberg

I think you need to be very careful about how you heat the mix to dissolve the oxalic acid. A few minutes doing a google scholar search on dissolving oxalic acid in glycerin turned up numerous science publications on how fast this mix destroys the oxalic acid at elevated temperatures. Looks to me like if you over heat a bit you could easy end up with zero mite kills because you destroyed the active ingredient. The guys in S America say heat to 60 deg C to dissolve. That translates to 140 deg F. I would be careful to not go higher than that and be careful to cool back to room temp fairly fast after the oxalic acid dissolves. Those same refs also had data that says once dissolved the oxalic acid gets chemically combined with the glycerin on storage at room temperature so shelf life of impregnated towels may be really short. Only testing will show if my concerns are real or not and if there are easy ways around these problems. But, if they are real I expect to hear a lot of failures to kill mites with this mix. Better not bet the ranch just yet that this is a magic bullet to deal with mites. I am sure it can be made to work but there likely are going to be some tricks.


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## Ian

How long is too long in regards to storage because the treatment duration is over a few weeks in the hive not considering the time of storage before hand


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## Oldtimer

Now he tells me .

Just kidding RC, very useful to know.


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## Ian

I think we need specifics before we jump to conclusions


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## Oldtimer

OK done some research on this which wasn't easy because just about everything was behind a paywall or similar.

But best I can tell the temperatures used by people wanting to produce a chemical reaction are well over the 150 f (65.5 C) that I used to dissolve the acid. Also, I was not using a mask and smelled nothing like formic acid so there cannot have been much / any produced.

But both my nose test and my research are pretty loose so any further info would be great!


----------



## Richard Cryberg

A lot depends on exactly what the active ingredient is in this glycerin and oxalic acid mix. If the active is only oxalic acid even 150 deg F may be too hot and storage times could easy be no more than a month. If oxalic acid is the only active ingredient I can not tell from the lit what is safe, but I can tell that temps even as high as 150 deg F are going to hurt. According to the lit you are not going to smell formic acid until you are over 100 deg C and by then the damage will have been done if oxalic acid is the only active. At this point I simply have not seen enough details on how to use the stuff effectively to know if what can happen chemically is important and what is not important. All that said, I do believe it is very promising and can be made to work. Just perhaps a bit trickier that it looks to be on first reading. Or perhaps not? Depends a lot on what the active is. The S Americans seem to think the active is glycerin mono oxalate. If they are right 150 deg F is fine and shelf life is not an issue. But, they have not provided data to show me that the mono oxalate is active.


----------



## beekuk

Richard Cryberg said:


> At this point I simply have not seen enough details on how to use the stuff effectively to know if what can happen chemically is important and what is not important. All that said, I do believe it is very promising and can be made to work. Just perhaps a bit trickier that it looks to be on first reading. Or perhaps not?


Richard, have you seen these links? they are now producing the product Aluen Cap, it has been tested in several countries and seems to work okay, made from the formulation in the research article.
https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...ticias/aluen-cap-llega-a-la-calle&prev=search

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0405-7


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## beekuk

......


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## Ian

"ew days (with or without water), that the acid dissolved the towel. I don’t observe this happening at room temp, but have not had time to test to determine how long the treated towels can be stored before losing strength. The Aluen CAP strips claim to be good for an extended storage period. I will be performing tests to see whether the OA or towels degrade with extended storage. For now, probably best to make them up fresh"

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-shop-towel-updates/


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## johno

Those 6 hives that I treated with craft paper and the Argentinian formulation of OA/glycerin that are booming, well I did a search to mark queens this morning and had 4 medium boxes packed with bees. If I had queens I could split them all. The surprise was that I had not removed the craft paper in the fall and there were still some remnants left. Now would this treatment have anything to do with these booming hives.
Johno


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## Oldtimer

2 weeks now since I put the experimental towels in that apiary so went over today for a look. As per the pic the bees have not chewed the towels out as much as I would have liked. When I put the towels on they looked like the bees would have them out too quick so I folded them over double. But obviously the bees don't much like it so from now I'll be putting the towels on not folded double, plus may slash a starter hole or two in the middle to get the bees started.

The towels have not been joined to anything, or propolized. Look like the bees really don't even want to touch them.

Didn't test for mites will do that at the end. Was noticeable at most of the hive entrances the bees were jiggling around a lot like they sometimes do when there is a heavy mite infestion. But after measuring 2 weeks ago I'm sure it's not that, hoping it's that they are being annoyed by a thin coating of mite killing brew. But, we will see in due course.


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## gww

So Oldtimer
Testing in two weeks even if the towel is not removed or waiting untill it is and then testing? I am waiting with baited breath.
Good luck
gww
Ps I always like the pictures.


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## Oldtimer

Yes I'll test in couple weeks regardless. 

Just found out another guy here has already treated 600 of his hives with this and very pleased with the results. He used different towels though, baby sanitary towels which are thicker and softer, said the bees chewed them out at just the right rate. He said the thicker towels made it impossible to get the mix the same amount on each one, he ended up with from 10 to 60 mls mix on each towel, heckuva variation he did not specifically say how the hives with the lightweight towels did in comparison.


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## Bill Russell

Treated 1400 hives in December. Real good results. Haven't been following this thread so excuse me if this has already been addressed.... I just soaked the entire roll of towels in hot glycerin oxalic solution. Allowed rolls to drain overnight. Made dispenser to peal off towels. Ie. Like toilet paper roller by toilet. Worked well. 
Good idea to get towels dry but not that essential. Our pretty wet towels were carried out by end of January. 
Towels even worked laid on top bars of single brood nest under excluder. Mostly empty feed super on top.


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## Ian

what were your pre and post mite counts?


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## Oldtimer

And what was the recipe, ie 1 to 1 glycerine to OA or what, and how much did you put in each hive?


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## Ian

Would the tear down and removal increase if you draped a towel over the top and down the sides of a middle frame ?


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## RDY-B

this is great news for what we are trying to accomplish--very great news
there has been a lot of discussion of propilizing--bees dont propilize at the start 
of the session where ever that may be they propelize and seal everything at the 
end of the season---time of events has a lasting point in this discussion ---RDY-B


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## Bee Arthur

Ian said:


> Would the tear down and removal increase if you draped a towel over the top and down the sides of a middle frame ?


If I remember Randy Oliver's article on this subject, he said that draping the towels over a frame sometimes led to it falling down to the bottom of the hive after the bees chewed on it for a bit; thereby rendering it useless as a mite treatment.


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## antonioh

Well, when you refer to 25 g oxalic + 25 ml glycerin, you are refering to oxalic acid dihydrate, as in Randy study for dribbling, or the oxalic acid anhydrous form ?

We have both in the market and both can be used, but there is a huge difference between molecular weigths


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## Oldtimer

The one I'm using is the dihydrate, which is the most common and the cheapest form.


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## Bill Russell

A little background..... Pre oxalic, glycerin treatment bees had been treated with apivar and then oxalic vapor in North Dakota and Wisconsin. Results of those treatments were not satisfactory. 0 - 4 mites in most washes with the occasional 12-15 count. Within 10 days of application of towel it was difficult to find a mite.
Recipe was 1 liter glycerin; 1 kilo oxalic.
Draping towels is unnecessary. Again keep in mind these bees were a single brood nest with towel under excluder. Feed super on trop with 10-20 lbs of feed. The point is that the towel/bee contact was not great. Bees were not on any kind of a flow.
As far as oxalic per towel. Each batch of towels averaged....4 liters;4kilos made about 5 rolls (250). WE drained them on a cushion of dry towels. Roll in vertical position. Consequently Bottom third of towel was wetter than top. Which by the way may be good. Bees tear up drier part quicker and then wetter part later. Extended exposure.
Propolizing may be an issue in some areas. Which I would guess would just mean you'd need to scrap the towel off after a while. Treatment would still work but probably not as long. Central Florida, no flow , winter, towel not between brood nests towels torn up in about 7-8 weeks. Nice!
My son and I think this is the next big thing. THe discussion that this is just a stopgap excerise greatly underestimates how effective this treatment is.
Hats off to Randy for disseminating this info.


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## Ian

Stopgap flyswatter is Randy's words from his article


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## Bill Russell

I failed to mention we originally were just testing this method out on a couple of problem hives. Seemed to work. Then I tried treatment on my brother-in-law's 30-40 hives with counts running up in the 50-70 mite range. I didn't see it but he assured me there was a huge knockdown after 48 hours. He didn't re-sample to quantify.


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## Ian

Wow you must be talking drops and not washes


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## Oldtimer

Bill Russell said:


> 4 liters;4kilos made about 5 rolls (250).


OK well according to my calculator that's about 32 g per towel, something around the same as the rest of us using. Very encouraging.


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## Ian

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-shop-towel-updates/

Randy has described a full Towel method of soaking that looks a bit more practical then his original method


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## Oldtimer

Good reference Ian, looks like that's a better way.


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## johno

I wonder if you could use Swiffer pads with this treatment as I have them on my hives after harvest for hive beetles, might kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
Johno


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## snl

johno said:


> I wonder if you could use Swiffer pads with this treatment as I have them on my hives after harvest for hive beetles, might kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Johno


Try it and let us know..........


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## Bill Russell

Ian. ThAt 50-70 was wash. Bees were crashing


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## Ian

Bill Russell said:


> Ian. ThAt 50-70 was wash. Bees were crashing


Holy crap
Beyond repair 
Let us know what his bottom board looks like after treatment


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## Branman

I'm imagining a literal pile of mites with some thickness on the bottom board


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## jean-marc

Bill Russell said:


> Ian. ThAt 50-70 was wash. Bees were crashing


By were you mean hives are no longer crashing? That would be remarkable seeing as how levels were so high, in the 16-23% range. I wouldhave liked to see a beforeand after picture.

Jean-Marc


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## Daniel Y

Considering this is the link in the actual description. I am thinking these are the towels suggested.
http://www.kcprofessional.com/products/wipers/general/scott-shop-towels
If you look at the rest of the description of how to prepare them you might see why.


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## Branman

Any sort of consensus about when to put the sheets out? Assuming Northern Hemisphere, like Julyish? I should clarify the flow stops to a dead halt in Georgia in June...barring sourwood in the mountains.


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## acbz

I have used the OA/gly solution in various forms beginning last summer when a small group of us including Randy were testing the South American version, applied 600g OA per 1 liter of gly in strips. My experience with the hung strips was the same as described in the ABJ article. Beginning last November, I started testing Randy's blue shop towel version with the 1kg/1 L strength formula on about 150 splits. It seems that the full effect takes several weeks of exposure and the towels will just be starting to get chewed at the two week mark. I would recommend waiting at least a month before taking post treat samples, and maybe even longer if they are still working on the towel. The pics Oldtimer posted look right. 
Bill makes a great point about the uneven soaking possibly being a benefit to extended exposure. 
I have seen no negative side effects, other than placing a towel between brood chambers can tend to isolate the queen and cluster to the top or bottom box during winter months with low population. There is definitely a "knock down" effect for hives with very high mite loads, and I have photos of towels with dozens of dead mites on them after 3 days of exposure in the hive. Propolizing seems to be a minor issue in weaker hives. Recently applied several hundred more towels under the excluders as Bill described. 
Still learning. I wouldn't be surprised if it will require a two-towel treatment, maybe a month apart, for hives with high mite loads and lots of brood rearing taking place to get them "clean". 
Making large batches takes quite a while if not soaking an entire roll at a time. I've been soaking and hand-wringing stacks of 10-15 towels at a time. Will probably try Randy's new half-roll method in the future. 
Aaron


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## Oldtimer

Awesome info abcz. Just about to go out today and commense treatment of the rest of my hives so that encouraging news is great to know.


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## Ian

Gotta love EBay, products found and bought from the convenience of the late night couch, delivered to my PO within days.

I'm going to try the half towel method too. I need to first buy an old hot plate from our local MCC second hand store and a pot. My wife does not allow these things to conduct in the house anymore


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## DavidZ

Oldtimer said:


> The one I'm using is the dihydrate, which is the most common and the cheapest form.


Dyhidrate just contains about 20% chemically combined water, othewise known as water of crystallization. Anhydrous, contains no water of crystallization.


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## RDY-B

opcorn:--RDY-B


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## RDY-B

Ian said:


> RDY-B, I think a good strategy would be to make up the towels on the off season so that your not worried with workload to mix towels during busy times. I would assume the OA glycerin towel much woukd keep well in a sealed container.
> 
> Just some feedback on your comments, I think spending the time to soaking the towels probably is better than looking for a half cut roll soak method, I think it's important to get even distribution of the OA crystals throughout the towel.
> Sheep dip is a totally different medium and even if there are application similarities, I don't think they should be viewed as the same


there has been movement in the forward direction are you keeping up-- RDY-B


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## Ian

Hey man that's not a fair comment 
I'm just contributing to a conversation 
opcorn:



Ian said:


> http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-shop-towel-updates/
> 
> Randy has described a full Towel method of soaking that looks a bit more practical then his original method


----------



## minz

Ian said:


> My wife does not allow these things to conduct in the house anymore


now there is a story dying to be told!


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## Ian

minz said:


> now there is a story dying to be told!


Ha ha nope lol


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## RDY-B

Ian said:


> Hey man that's not a fair comment
> I'm just contributing to a conversation
> opcorn:


Ian im excited about the updates--im glad its a descsion  and not a debate--  --i hope my post didnt put a strain on you--but i cant find anything about a new full towel procese--
--only the tried and trough half towel method--the new recipe is key--this information provides a method
that can be used to four half rolls in a five gallon bucket at one time--that batch will do 100 colonies--in just the fraction
of time as start up method--its workable on many fronts--small to large--:thumbsup:-- RDY-B


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## Ian

RDY-B said:


> Im glad its a descsion  and not a debate--  --but i cant find anything about a new full towel procese--
> RDY-B


The optimal formula appears to be (per towel) 12 g of OA dihydrate, 13 mL of glycerine, and 5 mL of water. Multiplied by 55 towels + the cardboard roll = 56/2, for final amounts per half roll of towels , 
336g Oxalic Acid 
364ml Glycerin 
140ml water


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## RDY-B

yes Ian that is correct--this is for half a roll(the full rolls are cut in half--not a full towel as brought up in your qoute )
at post # 334--maybe it was a typo--its not important --but this is a direction I know will be beneficial
to ALL--all this means is you place two half towels in the hive---trying to work a full roll of towels wether 
processing-- or in the field--during application is lees than ideal--my man you run bees you should know this--RDY-B


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## Ian

As quoted from Randy's site;

"It appears the total glycerin should not exceed 13 mL per towel. This amount of glycerin will hold 12 g of OA, without the OA coming out of solution at hive temp.

I think that I’ve finally hit upon a formula that works. It is difficult to get the solution to wick by capillary action into the full length of a roll of shop towels. "

RDY-B my original comments stand, wicking this Glycerin Oxalic solution up into a full roll probably would not work as the distribution of the glycerin /Oxalic might not wick evenly right through the towel roll. Randy has done it on a half cut roll and suggests it worked after warming and soaking duration. 

It's not just the proper Oxalic concentration per towel, it's also the proper glycerin concentration. Too heavy the bees ignore it, too light and the bees would remove too fast (as suggested) . 
Conversation here suggests maybe that could be used as an advantage. 

Bottom line...talk in full sentences so I can understand what your trying to say.


----------



## Lauri

Since you have mentioned keeping the solution warm, This is an interesting thing my husband brought home for me from a job site demo. It may be familiar to some, but I had no idea what it was used for. It's a Flat Panel Radiant heater. About $45.00
https://www.amazon.com/Cozy-Product...TF8&qid=1488289171&sr=8-1&keywords=indus+tool

I kept it to keep buckets of honey warm, but have used it in other ways too. Might be good for keeping your OA towels warm while they are absorbing the solution. Covering the 5 gallon bucket or container would keep it quite warm.

































Anyone that makes home made bread has GOT to get one of these


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## Ian

Lauri is it something that would heat up to 160degrees F ?


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## Lauri

I'll check. It is hot enough in the center I can not place my bare hand on it for more than a fleeting second. You can see with the bread dough I have an air gap by using a cooling rack for spacing


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## acbz

i bought an induction cooker for making batches. Works great and no hot surfaces or open flames. I have found that the digital thermometers with the thermocouple probe quickly go bad in the acid mixture. Switched to an analog meat thermometer, but a handheld laser temp gun should also do the trick.


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## RDY-B

delete post


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## Charlestonbee

I'm going to make some shop towels up next week. Do you think I can use a half dose for splits? I'll be using the updated Randy Oliver method with half a roll of shop towels


----------



## crazylocha

OK, so bosses and I have been discussing this new style of treatment. Have read Randy's website and this entire thread. 

Half roll treatment, can we do the similar blue towel treatment, I.e. half towel now and treat again in 2 weeks with same, or is better to do 2 half towels at one shot?

Can't express enough how much appreciate all the work done by all here. Have had great success with my personal hives and OAV, and have been lobbying for OA to be introduced into our work treatment rotation for 2 years now.

Only thing I will be insisting on, is boss sends Mr Oliver a check to say thank you for his outstanding efforts. Are any of you sending at least a $5?


----------



## camero7

> Only thing I will be insisting on, is boss sends Mr Oliver a check to say thank you for his outstanding efforts. Are any of you sending at least a $5?


I send a few $$$ regularly


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## Ian

Yup he's gotten a nice token from me


----------



## Ben Little

Just spent the past 3 days at meetings with Randy Oliver as the guest speaker, what a ton of information that man has !!!! Not sure how he keeps all of the data stored in his head like that 

Just for the fact that he doesn't use synthetic treatments and no prophylactic AFB treatments (just fire if it shows up) keeps his combs in perfect condition and no need to replace them, since he makes a ton of nucs each year, his combs are always being replaced regardless. This step forward in using OA towels as an extender is just awesome as far as I am concerned , he did say it was illegal to use the application method unless you have a permit, so please don't advertise if you intend on using it, it can be very expensive he said  I know you all know that, just thought I would throw that in there.

The efficacy of the towel versus the OA strips is a little lower but the difference is not enough to factor the time invested in going through the hives and pulling out the 8 strips later versus just letting the bees chew the towel away. 

Hope this wasn't off topic, I was just excited to meet the man and thought I would jump in with this info.


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## Oldtimer

Went back and did mite counts at the site that was treated on 8th January, or just over 4 weeks ago.

Dissapointing result, at the time of treatment mite counts were running at around 3 mites per 300 bee sample, they are now running at 4 to 5 mites per 300 bee sample, meaning at face value, the treatment has had little or no effect.

What I have to do now is figure out why. Because a buddy of mine here has had good results, he did not do pre treatment alcohol washes but used drop boards and after the first day of treatment put pics on our local forum of drop boards with thousands of mites.

So once I can talk to him I need to find what he did, that's different to me. One possibility is I overheated the mix while making it, I didn't know it mattered at that time. Anyhow, we'll see.


----------



## gww

Oldtimer
Dang, thats dissapointing.
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

Surely was. I was fully expecting to find no mites in the wash.

However will be a valuable learning tool, clearly something I have done has stopped it from working properly. I will track that down, and learning what not to do, will be as important as learning what to do, to get this system running right.


----------



## crazylocha

Oldtimer, keep testing over the next month please. Had chance this week to catch up with friend about some of the tests he helped with. They also saw longer than expected numbers drop times, and it was worth the wait. Am hoping to get an exemption at work to run tests also.

Looking forward to seeing our rolls in May and June and all of yours. Thanks for the sharing of all.


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## Ian

Was the towel chewed and mostly gone?


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## Oldtimer

Here's a pic of a typical looking towel taken at today's check. When I catch up with my buddy one thing I'll want to know is the rate his towels got chewed, we are using different types.


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## gww

Oldtimer
Are these still the towels that you layed doubled up and not in a single sheet?

If so they may not have been seen by the bees as dry enough.

I don't mind throwing wild guesses out.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

Yes they are those. A bit more chewing going on underneath than what is obvious in the pics, but all the same I'm thinking along the same lines as you.


----------



## Oldtimer

crazylocha said:


> Oldtimer, keep testing over the next month please. Had chance this week to catch up with friend about some of the tests he helped with. They also saw longer than expected numbers drop times, and it was worth the wait. Am hoping to get an exemption at work to run tests also.
> 
> Looking forward to seeing our rolls in May and June and all of yours. Thanks for the sharing of all.


Thanks for the encouragement. I will let some of them run just to see, but will certainly be keeping a close eye. 

One factor is they have a lot less brood now than a month ago so more phoretic mites are to be expected, although if I'd used another treatment method there would not be this many.


----------



## Ian

Is the towel dried out? Or still oily ?


----------



## Oldtimer

Not oily but kind of dampish.


----------



## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> Here's a pic of a typical looking towel taken at today's check.


 It surely doesn't appear to hurt the bees.


----------



## minz

Randy posted an update to his site yesterday.


----------



## Ian

I'm still a lurker on this topic and will not have experience for a few months yet.
Oldtimer's feedback here is refreshing. It's exactly as I imagined this treatment could end up doing. There is so much positive buzz around this that I wonder if some of the efficacy has been exaggerated. 
i need to know why Oldtimer had zero efficacy... and exactly what others are doing to achieve these tremendous positive results 
I was going to ask if you had the right amount of glycerin mix on per towel because too much will decrease the towel tear...but I've already asked that. 

Are you running more hives under the same trial Oldtimer?


----------



## Oldtimer

Yes it's now in 300 hives. The friend who has got impressive results with his drop boards will be going into his hives in a few days, then we'll see how much his towels have been shredded, this might be the difference. We'll see.


----------



## R_V

following


----------



## Ian

Oldtimer said:


> Yes it's now in 300 hives. The friend who has got impressive results with his drop boards will be going into his hives in a few days, then we'll see how much his towels have been shredded, this might be the difference. We'll see.


The way I imagine the shreading of the towel mode of action to disperse the OA would look like hives chewing newspaper and kicking it out the front. There are fibers of newspaper everywhere. Same should be when the bees tear apart this shop towel.


----------



## ParkerBee

I am following this thread with great interest. 

Oldtimer, I believe you mentioned that you inadvertently may have overheated the solution. Do you know approximately how hot your solution was? I wonder if that could explain the reduced efficacy. 

Does anyone know how stable the ocalic/glycerin solution is? Does it degrade over time at either room or hive temperatures?


----------



## Oldtimer

He hasn't said if there were shreds out front, which leads me to think probably not.

ParkerBee I did overheat it. Didn't really pay much attention to that as at the time Randy had not that I know of, mentioned that as a possible problem. But I did take the temperature at one point and it was beyond what Randy later recommended as a maximum. So that, or the wrong towel type, are the most likely culprits at this time.

Planning to do some work and get to the bottom of this but will probably take a few weeks or months.


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## johno

Quite frankly the longer the towel stays in the hive the better, the reason Randy wanted the bees to remove it was because he felt that leaving it in too long would allow the mites to develop resistance to the OA. The other consideration is that the South Americans use a lower percentage of OA in the mixture so I feel that the towels would be wetter and would spread the mixture around better. There is a commercial beekeeper down there that uses only this type of treatment on his hives and claims it to be very successful. 
Johno


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## crazylocha

ParkerBee said:


> Does anyone know how stable the ocalic/glycerin solution is? Does it degrade over time at either room or hive temperatures?


Can say I have 2 plastic coffee containers with a half roll of shop towels. One has been in my back seat for few days after being in the truck of a fellow Beek who helped with others trials. These were extra from his personal trial mixed last weekend. 

Room temp sitting around the honey house doesn't seem to have any problems. Advice we were given was mix batch for application for the week at a time. Once a half roll is drained of the excess, can stack them in 5gallon bucket just like we do with "other blue towels". 

On the eye test, seems like longer they sit, tend to stick together a bit more.

Once we get full supplies in to go full run, after we get exception permit of course, will share all I can.


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## Oldtimer

chazman said:


> I think it worked pretty good if you ask me. Only mixed what I needed, and it is packaged and ready to use. The gallon size Ziplock probably could have handled a lot more towels, Maybe as many as 50. Squeezing the mix around would get harder the more you add though.


How did the treatment work out for you Chazman?


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## Richard Cryberg

ParkerBee said:


> Does anyone know how stable the ocalic/glycerin solution is? Does it degrade over time at either room or hive temperatures?


This is an excellent question. An oxalic acid solution in glycerin at room temp slowly undergoes a chemical reaction called esterification where the oxalic acid reacts with the glycerin to form glycerin mono oxalate. That chemistry was well documented in the chemical literature long ago. The problem is no one knows if only oxalic acid is the active ingredient or if glycerin mono oxalate is also an active ingredient when it comes to killing mites. If both are actives this esterification stuff is irrelevant. If only oxalic acid is an active the esterification stuff is terribly important and we need to learn how to minimize ester formation.

The esterification reaction is a reversible reaction that produces one molecule of water. So adding water to the mix will help minimize ester formation if the ester is not an active ingredient. Exposure to the moist atmosphere inside the hive might also very slowly accomplish the hydrolysis of the ester to oxalic acid.

High temperatures during the dissolution of the oxalic acid in pure glycerin are very bad and cause very rapid ester formation. At 60 C (140 F) about 1/3 of the oxalic acid you start with is converted to the ester within 15 minutes based on experiments I did. At even a little higher temperature the loss of oxalic acid will be faster and greater.

My suggestion from a chemists view point is to use a mix of water plus glycerin to dissolve the oxalic acid and keep those temperatures as low as possible during dissolution. I see on Randy's latest up date on his web page he is looking at water glycerin mixes as the solvent.

But, remember that no one knows if the ester is an active ingredient or not. If the ester is an active ingredient my concern about temperatures during the dissolution of the oxalic acid are irrelevant. I suppose it is even possible the ester is the main active ingredient, in which case we would want to maximize it instead of minimize it.


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## crazylocha

From Randy's update:
Tip: I noticed yesterday that it appeared to help to heat the water first, then add the OA. This appeared to allow me to break up the chunks better than when I add the OA to the hot glycerin first (I need to confirm this).

Richard, how much would dissolving the OA into water first change the esterization issues?


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## Oldtimer

Great info Richard. Also discovered that the guy here who is getting good results added water to his mix at 1 part water to 5 parts OA / Glycerine mix.


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## Adam Foster Collins

A quote from Randy's March 11 Update:

"*A beekeeper just reported to me that he placed 2-3 cardboard strips following the Argentine formula into 15 nucs and killed them all.* I’ve not yet tested on nucs, so be careful!"

That makes me nervous enough to wait on this one. I appreciate everyone's input and will continue to follow this closely. I've been wondering how one might apply this to nucs, and how you'd scale down for the smaller colony.

Adam


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## Richard Cryberg

crazylocha said:


> From Randy's update:
> Tip: I noticed yesterday that it appeared to help to heat the water first, then add the OA. This appeared to allow me to break up the chunks better than when I add the OA to the hot glycerin first (I need to confirm this).
> 
> Richard, how much would dissolving the OA into water first change the esterization issues?


Oxalic acid has limited water solubility so you probably can not get away with first dissolving in straight water. Having as much water as possible present right at the start is the right direction to go to minimize ester formation. If you have a lot of water I would expect the excess to evaporate in the hive, so too much may not be a problem as long as the oxalic acid is the primary active ingredient. You do need to have enough glycerin in the mix to prevent the oxalic acid from just crystallizing out when the excess water evaporates.

Lets see. What I said above seems like it is probably confusing. So, say you took 30 grams of oxalic acid and dissolved it in 100 grams of hot water with no glycerin at all. You can get that much oxalic acid dissolved by about 60 deg C. But, when it cools to room temp most of the oxalic acid will crystallize. And on exposure in the hive the rest of the water is going to evaporate pretty fast so in a day or so all you will have is your shop towel covered with crystals of oxalic acid. But, if you had put a bunch of glycerin in there with the water the oxalic acid will stay dissolved as it is much more soluble in glycerin than it is in water. And in glycerin only part of the water will evaporate as glycerin loves dissolved water and will suck it out of moist air up to a point.

I suspect there is some balancing act we all need to learn here. It is obvious that these strips can work and work very well. It is just going to take some trial and error experiments to figure out what the bloody formula needs to be. All science can do is point in logical directions for those trial and error experiments to go in. Getting the formula right is also going to minimize the amount of oxalic acid you must use to be effective if only oxalic acid is active in killing mites. Getting the amount of oxalic used to a minimum reduces any residue issues that might show up in honey and would make all our regulatory people happier.

Remember, what I have said assumes oxalic acid is the only active miticide and the glycerin oxalate is not effective. There are what seem to me to be reasonable reasons to think this is the case. But, I am wrong on such things so often I sure would not bet any of my own money on it. It is very possible I am making a mountain out of something that is no problem at all and making a bunch of glycerin oxalate is just fine.

Dick


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## ParkerBee

Thank you Richard. That was the info I was looking for. 

I've read that glycerin is hygroscopic. Could the glycerin absorb enough moisture over time that the esterification slowly reverses working almost like a time release mechanism for oxalic? If that's the case I'd suspect we need to find the right balance of esters to oxalic acid to dose the hives effectively.


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## Oldtimer

Just heard back from my buddy whose treatment has been killing a thousand or more mites daily over the first few days. Turns out he is using the exact same towel as me, and in 2 weeks the bees have chewed almost none of it. So that seems unlikely to be the issue.

Differences from what I did is his mix per towel is 12 g glycerine, 13 g OA, 5 g water. In other words pretty much the same mix but with water added. He tried to keep temperature minimal when making the mix, and only made a few towels, so likely cooling would have been fast. He did not double the towel, so it covers most of the box. 

Don't know how significant any of that is but it's the only differences. I've messaged him to ask exactly what sequence he used to make the mix, ie, water first, or what.


----------



## Richard Cryberg

ParkerBee said:


> Thank you Richard. That was the info I was looking for.
> 
> I've read that glycerin is hygroscopic. Could the glycerin absorb enough moisture over time that the esterification slowly reverses working almost like a time release mechanism for oxalic? If that's the case I'd suspect we need to find the right balance of esters to oxalic acid to dose the hives effectively.


Another great question which I can not answer. It is sure something to hope for. On the other hand a hive in the desert is going to have a much lower humidity than one in Houston in the summer where the usual forecast is 99/99 for humidity and temp.

What I can say is at room temp ester formation is reasonably slow. By slow I mean perhaps a month to reach equillibrium from what I see in the chemical literature. Ester hydrolysis back to free oxalic acid is going to take about the same time. A hive is a bit warmer than room temp so chemistry should happen faster by a factor of more or less two.

Oldtimers real world observations are likely a lot more important than any guesses I make.

Dick


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## Roland

Richard wrote:

On the other hand a hive in the desert is going to have a much lower humidity than one in Houston in the summer where the usual forecast is 99/99 for humidity and temp.

Me: That may not be the case in the brood chamber. A betting man would bet that the bees control the humidity for the larvae and eggs to flourish. They are known to transport water heavily on occasions.

Maybe Oldtimer should compare locations within the hive with his friend. Are both towels amongst the brood, or outside of it.

Cray Roland


----------



## Roland

duplicate


----------



## chazman

I have to admit that I have not yet taken mite counts so I don't quite yet have any efficacy results. In looking at my bees, NONE are dead and I do have mite drops in my trays, I just can't say if they are excessive by looking.

I also have started another experiment with Randy's guidance. I have made another set of towel strips to test the effect of adding Thymol to the mixture to promote the bees removal of the towels and to minimize the propolizing of the towels. Randy recommended mixing up to 3g of Thymol per ml of Glycerin. I could not quite get up to 3gm of Thymol into the solution before it was too much. But I was able to make strips with 0g, .25g, .5g, 1.0g, 1.5g and 2.0g of Thymol per ml of Glycerin.

Here is a picture of a hive with the test strips in the order I mentioned with the 0g control at the bottom the day I put them in:







Here they are after 48 hours:







And here is a picture after one week.








As Randy and other have stated the goal is to promote removal of the towel in about a month.

At first look it is obvious the Thymol has promoted different levels of towel removal, and with one week it looks like about 1g per ml will be about right for a month removal. 

More data to follow.

Chuck


----------



## Oldtimer

There's something else also, a question for Richard perhaps. The several guys here who have been getting impressive kills on their drop boards made their mix on a stove top, where I did mine in a microwave. The guys who used a stove all seem to have heated the mix to coffee temperature, then turned the heat down, added the OA, then stirred while the mix gradually warmed until the OA was dissolved. Meaning it only got up to the minimum temperature needed to dissolve all the OA. Me with the microwave, I dissolved some of the OA, then had to heat more, then stir some more, then heat more, then stir some more till all was dissolved. Which means a lot of dissolved OA was exposed to microwaves. Could that assist with breaking the OA down? While the guys using stoves did not have that issue?


----------



## larrypeterson

I hope this is within the scope of this thread,

I tried to do what "Oldtimer" is suggesting "Thinking inside the box" and simply prepared the OA in warmed glycerin and used it in an insect yard fogger. I plan to do the third treatment this nest week. I have watched the bees and so far I have seen no adverse reaction. My proportions are those suggested by Randy Oliver and the fogger seemed to work just fine. The solution, or suspension remained dissolved (or suspended) for just over a week now and still appears clear.

Thank you for tolerating me, LP


----------



## Richard Cryberg

Oldtimer said:


> Which means a lot of dissolved OA was exposed to microwaves. Could that assist with breaking the OA down? While the guys using stoves did not have that issue?


Microwaves are going to have no impact at all on the rate of breakdown. But, it is easy to over heat in a microwave by my personal experience and heat is a problem. I accidentally got some so hot in a microwave it was effervescing carbon dioxide which says the temp got above 100 deg C.


----------



## Oldtimer

Thanks. I'll change to making it on the stove.


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## johno

I still have a copy of a posting to bee-l in may 2015 from a Fernando Esteban where he discusses the process of manufacturing the mix of 1kg of glycerin and 600grams of OA and that they suspect that the resultant mixture is glyceryl mono oxalate. They did not heat there mixture above 65C or 150F. There is a definite reaction taking place during the mixing of the two which is endothermic as the temperature drops dramatically when the OA is added to the hot glycerin. If the mixture is heated further another reaction takes place and FA is released so I should imagine you would soon realize if you have overheated the mixture.
Johno


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## laketrout

Just want to say I appreciate all the work you guys are doing its very interesting , I may have missed it somewhere along the line but is the oxalic pad or strip made commercially anywhere just wondering if any of the big companies with alot of resources have been able to figure this out or is it all new .


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## johno

I believe that I have seen some information about the South Americans perhaps applying for patents on the mixture, and also making the treatment available somewhere. Whether this was for South America or Europe I can't remember.
Johno


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## gww

Laketrout
This was post 298 of this thread. I don't know if it helps with what you ask or not.


> Originally Posted by *Richard Cryberg*
> At this point I simply have not seen enough details on how to use the stuff effectively to know if what can happen chemically is important and what is not important. All that said, I do believe it is very promising and can be made to work. Just perhaps a bit trickier that it looks to be on first reading. Or perhaps not?
> 
> 
> 
> Richard, have you seen these links? they are now producing the product Aluen Cap, it has been tested in several countries and seems to work okay, made from the formulation in the research article.
> https://translate.google.co.uk/trans...le&prev=search
> 
> http://link.springer.com/article/10....592-015-0405-7​



Good luck
gww​


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## laketrout

Thanks for the links guys it sounds very promising hope we can make some head way and if proved to be safe that it will be readily accepted here in the U.S. . It seemed like oav was a long time coming and even longer to be legalized but one step at a time . 

http://coronaapicultores.blogspot.com/2014/10/aluen-cap-nuevo-producto-organico.html


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## Oldtimer

Have made a new mix a bit different to the last, following some chemistry wisdom from Richard Cryberg. Made some towels up and yesterday went and treated the hives of a hobbyist friend of mine. Went back and had a look today and this time we appear to have - success!!   .

Lots of dead mites on the bottom board and the concrete slabs the hives are on. Even dead wax moth larvae. So this stuff is getting in!

The changes I made to the recipe and the method of making it are this. 2 liters of glycerine, 800 mls water, and 2 kg oxalic acid. Mixed the water and glycerine and brought up to 60 degrees C in the kitchen pot on a hot plate. Added the oxalic acid with heat still on and stirred continuously till dissolved and immediately removed from heat. Couldn't take the temperature it dissolved at cos I dropped the thermometer and broke it . But as the mix warmed a point was reached where the oa just suddenly all dissolved, and I did not heat past that point.

Tipped the mix over the towels and this time let the towels absorb as much as they would hold, which is 50 to 55 grams of mix per towel. Probably overkill but after the previous failure I just felt like giving more rather than less. I also laid the towels out in bunches of around 20 so they would cool quick.

Applied to the hives as per the pic, this time with the towel not doubled over but fully extended. 

What's noticeable is this mix has not really solidified like the no water mix, it is a lot more greasy to the touch, and I think will transfer onto the bees quicker and easier.

Because of the good looking result in the hobby hives, today I went to the site where alcohol washes were done, scraped off the old towels and put the new ones in. I'll do another round of alcohol washes at this site in a month and see how it goes this time.


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## gww

So Oldtimer, is it your veiw that it was a combination of too much heat and double towels hurting your previous results? Did the water help with soaking? Is it still to early to really tell untill they start removing?

My guess is combination of heat changing the olixic chiemically and maby the double layers seeming too wet.

What if your view as of now and subject to change with more info?
Thanks
gww

Ps I am finding it lots easer to learn from you then actually doing some work, ha ha.


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## chazman

chazman said:


> I have to admit that I have not yet taken mite counts so I don't quite yet have any efficacy results. In looking at my bees, NONE are dead and I do have mite drops in my trays, I just can't say if they are excessive by looking.
> 
> I also have started another experiment with Randy's guidance. I have made another set of towel strips to test the effect of adding Thymol to the mixture to promote the bees removal of the towels and to minimize the propolizing of the towels. Randy recommended mixing up to 3g of Thymol per ml of Glycerin. I could not quite get up to 3gm of Thymol into the solution before it was too much. But I was able to make strips with 0g, .25g, .5g, 1.0g, 1.5g and 2.0g of Thymol per ml of Glycerin.
> 
> Here is a picture of a hive with the test strips in the order I mentioned with the 0g control at the bottom the day I put them in:
> View attachment 31510
> 
> Here they are after 48 hours:
> View attachment 31509
> 
> And here is a picture after one week.
> View attachment 31508
> 
> 
> As Randy and other have stated the goal is to promote removal of the towel in about a month.
> 
> At first look it is obvious the Thymol has promoted different levels of towel removal, and with one week it looks like about 1g per ml will be about right for a month removal.
> 
> More data to follow.
> 
> Chuck


So here are some additional pictures with the strips being in the Hive for 14 days. They Thymol ratio definitely changes the rate at which the bees chew the towels, with the towel at the bottom of each hive being chewed the least.

As a reminder I made strips with 0g, .25g, .5g, 1.0g, 1.5g and 2.0g of Thymol per ml of Glycerin (in the pictures the control with 0mg of thymol are all at the bottom of the picture)

Most of the hives I have done mite counts on ( I only check when I find the queen ) have been taken down to infestation rates of 1-2%, with one exception of the first hive pictured below.

In this first hive picture, my mite count exploded for some reason. Went from 2% to 10%, I cannot say why other than there was an unusually large amount of drones and drone comb in the hive that could have helped the mites get going. I also am not 100% sure that I paid enough attention to the temperature as Oldtimer has been experimenting with.








In this second picture the bees have chewed almost all the towels in two weeks. The Bee count is extremely high in this hive. Strongest hive I have.


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## Daniel Y

Good luck Oldtimer. I hope your results improve.


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## Ian

Chuck, in the treated hive that had a mite population explosion, are the towels dropping mites right now?


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## johno

I still tend to think that Randy's mixture of 1:1 leaves the mixture too dry. I do not know the reason he deviated from the South American ratio of 1:0.6 where the mixture was wet and the towels would have to be drained to get off excess materiel. Oldtimers adding of water to the mixture would probably do the same. The other point of interest is that the towels or whatever medium is used should stay in the hive longer than 42 days. The removal by bees is Randy's plan to prevent this stuff from staying in to long and thereby allowing the mites to become resistant to the treatment.
Johno


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## msl

johno said:


> I do not know the reason he deviated from the South American ratio of 1:0.6 where the mixture was wet and the towels would have to be drained to get off excess materiel.


he said 


> The trick appeared to be to reduce the amount of glycerin saturation of the strips. Here you can see that when I reduced the amount of saturation of the towel to only 25%, that the bees would chew and remove it.


As the OA is dissolved in to and is not absorbing the glycerin, the mix is not any more wet or dry


----------



## Oldtimer

gww said:


> So Oldtimer, is it your veiw that it was a combination of too much heat and double towels hurting your previous results? Did the water help with soaking?


Don't know cos I changed several variables. Once an alcohol wash has been done in a months time at the test site, assuming it has worked as it looks like it should, then it will be time for fine tuning, things like how much water is optimal, that kind of thing. But treatment season here is drawing to a close, I'll do what I can, then I'll have to sit back and watch what you guys come up with so I can apply that next time around . 
Yes the water did help with soaking,easier penetration of the towels. One thing about it though, Randy mentioned oa is less soluble in water meaning addition of water will mean the oa could crystalise, and indeed this mix once cold and on the towels, did contain fine crystals, where the no water mix did not. But water helps prevent esterfication (if that's a word), so the thing will be to find the ideal amount of water.



chazman said:


> They Thymol ratio definitely changes the rate at which the bees chew the towels, with the towel at the bottom of each hive being chewed the least.


 Some towel types may get chewed faster than others, so if or how much thymol to add may have to be determined by that.


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## jean-marc

Tipped the mix over the towels and this time let the towels absorb as much as they would hold, which is 50 to 55 grams of mix per towel. Probably overkill but after the previous failure I just felt like giving more rather than less. I also laid the towels out in bunches of around 20 so they would cool quick.

Oldtimer can you be more specific. I can imagine several scenarios where I would "tip the mix over the towels" Exactly what did you do, please?

I am also wondering how come you did not do any washes previous to applying the towels on your hobbyist friend's colonies? Then we would have a good before and after scenario. I know it is a pain to do, but at least on 2-3 hives.

I do like that you are making some efforts and inroads with these towels, that I am sure will benefit many, myself included.

I would like to do some washes on my colonies to test our varroa level, but the weather has been cool and very wet. The winter bees have not regenerated themselves yet from lack of pollen. I will wait until conditions improve before doing washes. I feel washes are just too important to not do them.

Jean-Marc


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## Oldtimer

Put dry towels in a bin. Tipped hot mix over them and dunked and poked at them till they were fully saturated. lifted towels out by hand and let drip a few seconds then laid out in small bunches to cool. Then put in different bin.

Didn't do washes on the hobby hives cos I was too lazy. I do know the wash counts of the hives at my test site and will be doing more washes there in a month so will get the needed data from that.


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## jean-marc

Ok, thank you for that. Last year I was real happy with my OAV results but would sure like something else other than formic for late spring/early summer treatments if necessary. THis treatment method could fill that gap.

Jean-Marc


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## Ian

Jean-Marc
Just some feedback,
Randy mentioned the importance of 30g per towel because too much glycerin decreased the rate of towel tear down.


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## Terry G

following.


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## MT204

Has anyone tried putting the "formula" in a container and then applying a vacuum to the container to help dispersing it in the towells?


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## Daniel Y

MT204 said:


> Has anyone tried putting the "formula" in a container and then applying a vacuum to the container to help dispersing it in the towells?


I know woodworkers that do this to stabilize wood and do acrylic castings. It works. you can use a pressurized paint can and set it up to create a vacuum. Takes a bit of tinkering. Just saying it can be done but is a bit on the pricey side. Some make them so you can apply vac and then pressurize to get better penetration. I don't think this would be necessary with paper towels.


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## billabell

If you are a woodworker make one of these and kill 2 birds...

http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/welcome.htm


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## tulsafarmer

Following


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## gww

Oldtimer
It has been a couple of weeks since your last check. Have the bees finaly removed your folded towel and have you did any mite checks on them again or just give up on that batch?
Thanks
gww


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## Oldtimer

Haven't been near any of my own hives since then, been doing govt. inspections on other peoples hives. Will do a mite count 4 weeks after the new towels went in, and at that point will make a decision what to do with all the hives and will update here with the mite counts.


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## gww

Oldtimer
Thanks for the report.
gww


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## Calibeekeeper

He updated his website today


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## Ben Little

https://www.ingredientdepot.com/col...vegetable-glycerin-usp-99-7?variant=467523997 If you need a supplier for Glycerin , here is a good one  Looks like for Canadian shipping only, sorry folks.


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## johng

I mixed up a batch using his new updated method with the half rolls of paper towels. It was pretty easy, the rolls soaked up all the liquid after being flipped over once. It took me about a week to finish getting all the hives treated so I stored the rolls in a zip lock bag and they stored well. I could not tell any difference from when I started until a finished the next week. Hopefully I will have some good results in about 1 month. 

Amazon is where I ordered everything from. If you search Oxalic acid on Amazon the Glycerin will come up on the bottom of the page as a commonly purchased item with the Oxalic.


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## COAL REAPER

johng said:


> If you search Oxalic acid on Amazon the Glycerin will come up on the bottom of the page as a commonly purchased item with the Oxalic.


funny how that works!


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## Oldtimer

Went back to check the test yard today and some success, of sorts.

The test hives had increased mite numbers after the first towel application to 4 to 5 mites per 300 bee sample per hive. So at that time I changed out the towels to a different recipe incorporating some water and had been better temperature controlled while mixing, and used a larger dose per hive. Those same hives tested today at 0 to 2 mites per 300 bee sample, except for one hive that for reasons I could not see has gone up to 16 mites in the 300 bee sample. 

So for most of the hives the new recipe has decreased mites.

Looked at a non test site yard treated with the first round of towels, and mite numbers have increased considerably. There is no time left this season for more experimenting, it's now important to sort the mites so I'll still have some bees next spring. So other than the hives that got the second recipe towels, the rest of the hives will get treated with bayvarol over the next few days.

I feel like this method has potential, but somehow I haven't quite been able to nail it yet. So looking forward to see how things pan out for the experimentally inclined come fall in the USA.


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## Ian

Interesting... thx Oldtimer


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## gww

Oldtimer
Thanks for doing the work and letting us know the out come.
gww


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## ParkerBee

Thank you for the update, Oldtimer.


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## ikeepbees

Following. Thanks for the work and for sharing the info, everyone.


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## Ben Little

Any more updates on this treatment ? Is it working the way you expected it ? I actually would love to try this out on some hives as a trial. 

Thanks.


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## jean-marc

Ben:

What's stopping you?

Jean-Marc


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## Bush_84

jean-marc said:


> Ben:
> 
> What's stopping you?
> 
> Jean-Marc


My biggest concern is safety for my bees. In my particular case this year I'm planning on queen rearing and significantly expanding my hive count. If trying an expirimental treatment adverse effects my hives I'm screwed. I read through the topic a few weeks ago but don't recall if there was any talk about effects of temperature and humidity variations effecting the safety and effectiveness of the oxalic acid. We still have temps down into the 20s projected but also had 60s and sun this past weekend. I'd imagine that this is not the weather randy has been expiramenting with over in California.


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## pjigar

Bush_84 said:


> My biggest concern is safety for my bees. In my particular case this year I'm planning on queen rearing and significantly expanding my hive count. If trying an expirimental treatment adverse effects my hives I'm screwed. I read through the topic a few weeks ago but don't recall if there was any talk about effects of temperature and humidity variations effecting the safety and effectiveness of the oxalic acid. We still have temps down into the 20s projected but also had 60s and sun this past weekend. I'd imagine that this is not the weather randy has been expiramenting with over in California.


No pain no gain! You will have to try on your own to get you own data. Or stick with multiple OAV.


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## Bush_84

I don't use oxalic acid in any form right now. I have typically alternated hopguard and apivar in the fall. I do love the idea of using this shop towel treatment. Ill keep watching how things unfold and further updates and maybe test it on a nuc this summer.


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## Oldtimer

If you have been brave enough to try Hopguard, you will likely find OA / Glycerine towels less risky to the bees.

For me anyway, I put varying formulations and quantities of OA / Glycerine shop towels into 300 hives and although it did not get all the mites, I have been through all the hives since and not one shows any negative effects due to the OA / Glycerine.


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## Ben Little

jean-marc said:


> Ben:
> 
> What's stopping you?
> 
> Jean-Marc


Nothing is really stopping me, I just like to find out as much as possible regarding any tweaking that has been done, I keep up with R.O's site and haven't seen any updates lately. I might give it a shot soon, my mite loads are very low and I would like to keep it that way


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## Bush_84

Oldtimer said:


> If you have been brave enough to try Hopguard, you will likely find OA / Glycerine towels less risky to the bees.
> 
> For me anyway, I put varying formulations and quantities of OA / Glycerine shop towels into 300 hives and although it did not get all the mites, I have been through all the hives since and not one shows any negative effects due to the OA / Glycerine.


Care to expand upon that? I guess I had not heard of any issues with hopguard and I have not had any. I know there were issues with having to repeat treatments but I didn't know there were actually any other issues.


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## chazman

So far this year, my mite counts are under control, and I am in the middle of the main flow here in NE Florida. I am not a commercial beek, but rather a sideliner with about 20 hives. I find it VERY convenient to have these towels pre-made, and as I check my hives if one of them gets a higher count than I would like, I just put the towels on the hive and move on. The towels keep very well in a ziplock back in the refrigerator until they are needed (again .. I am storing dozens not hundreds of towels)

I don't actually know if they even need to be kept in the refrigerator, but I keep it next to my syrup bucket.

We learned through Oldtimers experience that heat control during the formulation is an important factor. Dont let your recipe get too hot. 160 degrees max, microwave might not be the best way to heat the formula once the OA has been added. You might be able to get away with heating the gycerine by itself in the microwave to get to your initial temperature.

I did some experimentation with Randy Oliver by adding Thymol to the OA/Glycerine mixture to encourage the chewing of the towels. i settled on 1g of Thymol per ml of Glycerin as the best ratio.

If anyone else wants to test or provide feedback on the Thymol addition, here is the recipe that I sent along to Randy.

To make one towel with 1g Thymol per ml Glycerin
12g OA
13ml Glycerin
5ml Water
Thymol 13g

Scale up recipe for number of towels to be made.

Chaz


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## Oldtimer

Bush_84 said:


> Care to expand upon that? I guess I had not heard of any issues with hopguard and I have not had any. I know there were issues with having to repeat treatments but I didn't know there were actually any other issues.


Yes. If you search Beesource for hopguard threads quite a few issues have been reported and not many people use it now.
Main issues have been queen losses, and the product not working. To a lesser extent, bees absconding, which seems mainly when applied in hot weather.


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## Bkwoodsbees

Thymol in what form is best, Thymol oil or crystals? A good source? When should thymol be added to the mixture?


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## Roland

I believe thymol refers to thymol, and Thyme oil refers to a plant extrative that is a mixture of aromatic compounds, mainly thymol, but not exclusively.. 

There are many sources for thymol, You could try Belwood Aromatics, 862 702-8980 Please report back how they treat you.

Crazy Roland


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## Ian

Thymol , blah
Does anyone actually watch how the bees act and react around that treatment?


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## Calibeekeeper

Made 2 rolls of shop towels which is enough for 112 hives from his current formula. Going to put it on only 80 hives of my own and give the rest to a buddy to put on. The hives I'm going to put it on, I had alcohol wash 13 hives and recorded the number of mites they had which they didn't have a high mite load but did have mites. So in a month I will go back and check those hives to see if this has treatment had worked or not. Also I well keep track of those 80 hives on how they do from now on to next year in the almonds to see if they are any good or not. These hives also will be taken to the hills in CA in a month to make honey in the California Holley bush, so I'll see if this treatment will decrease or increase the amount of honey they make...hopefully increase!

Note beside that I treated two hives this winter with this stuff. I didn't mark one of the hives so I couldn't locate that hive but the one I did mark and watched became to be a absolute boiler in the almonds and still is. This hive is a breeder queen for my queen operation also!


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## Calibeekeeper

So in regards to my last post it's been 25 days that the towels have been on the hives. Most of towels were almost almost gone it looked like maybe a week longer and they would be completely gone. Like I said before I checked a dozen or so hives to see how many mites the hive had. So I went yesterday and checked hives for mites to see if this stuff is working. Well bad news it did not work at all!!! Every hive had more mites than when I checked it before I put the oxalic acid on! Today I pulled the remander of the towels off and treated the 80 hives what I normally treat with to get control of the mites. I hope Randy gets this stuff figured out so it can be useful to us beekeepers.


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## msl

What were the rolls before and after, what did control hives look like, were you washing form the same 13


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## Calibeekeeper

Yes I alcoholed wash from the same 13. The towels were mostly chewed out. The hives never went backwards. It didn't kill any hives or queens.


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## Ian

Thx for the feedback cali


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## Oldtimer

Yes good info. Kind of the same as my own findings, didn't do any harm, but didn't reliably kill mites either.

Still like to know why it has worked for some people, but not others.


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## johno

I wonder if using the soft towels is the problem and they are being removed too quickly. The originators of this treatment used a strip of cardboard which would not be so easily removed and would remain for at least 2 brood cycles. When I did some tests last year I used craft paper and I used a half sheet on each of 3 medium brood boxes. Mite counts after 21 days made me use OAV on those hives to get the mite level down, when going through those hives this spring looking for queens to mark and clip which was no easy task as those hives were boiling with bees I found the remnants of the craft paper still in the hives.
Johno


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## msl

Oldtimer said:


> Still like to know why it has worked for some people, but not others.


seems to be the never ending question in all things beekeeping
I think it may be in part hyped expectations and timing messing with peoples subjective assessment 








looking at this chart some things stick out
It was mid summer not spring like the US keepers are trying right now, and his late summer numbers were much better. I think timing matters
He started with a very high mite level
He was still rolling 14 or so at 27 days in
Best rolls were at 42 days and still rolling 9(ish) 

with out people posting there counts its going to be hard to see threw the clutter as to what is hapinging and why it is or isn't working.
further more you can still be rolling a bit high at 30 days but the number will drop do to the reduced amount of mites in the brood


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## beemandan

msl said:


> looking at this chart some things stick out


When I first saw this chart....it reminded me why I was happy with Apiguard. 

I know he's trying to stay with the 'organic' miticides but....equally interesting would be to see how Apivar compared.


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## Calibeekeeper

I don't think the shop towels are the problem due to my results because a full broad cycle is 21 days it was on longer than that, which my mite numbers never deceased at all. So I think the formula needs to be tweaked.


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## johno

A full brood cycle may be 21 days but Apivar is left in the hive for42 days, so that might work with the slow system of OA and glycerin
Johno.


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## msl

right the question is less how many phoric mites you have at 30 days but how many in the brood at 30 days. What the roll means changes with a long turm suppression treatment as you expecting the numbers to decline over time, not grow
the 27 day mark was about the same as the controls starting mark, 30 days later it is about the same or less as it was, some would say it wasn't killing mites but 30 days from the same roll numbers the contoral has exploded








if you look at the normized chart you can see the towels at best lowered the mite loads by 65%, in a world of OAV taking out 97% of phoric mites I get people looking at there hives and thinking "it didn't kill all the mites, its not working" but the efect is not a wipe them out and let them rebuild till you need to wipe them out action like one shot treatments. It doese do some of that, but its about reversing the growth trend and keeping it going over an extended peroird of time
Calibeekeeper I would still love to have the counts you wrote down on the 13 hives


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## Calibeekeeper

I will for sure post the counts in a day or two when I get time


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## msl

:thumbsup:
thanks


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## Oldtimer

What's interesting with MSL's chart is the 4 OA strips worked better than the shop towels, indicating effectiveness may be influenced by mode of distribution.


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## gww

Oldtime
Randy mentioned this but the added work was not worth the improved working of the strips. You had to deal with removing a lot of stuff and handle it more carefully then just letting the bees remove it and than letting the inviroment absorb the excess. So it was a case of good enough being good enough due to the ease of aplication process.
Cheers
gww


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## Oldtimer

Yes I recall the discussion around that, and the lack of practicality of cardboard strips. But what I think it's saying to us is that OA glycerine mix is not nessecarily a failure, but more, that by whatever means, it needs to be distributed properly.


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## msl

yes (and its randys charts) the mode of distribution seems to matter
of note from his artical to reinforce that point 


> I applied OA dribble, using glycerin instead of sugar as the humectant (as a number of beekeepers in Italy are currently doing). Even after three weekly dribbles, the degree of mite reduction was unimpressive


I have been scratching my head a bit wondering why everyone if focused on the towels while randys and others work has pointed to the strips being more effective. so what if you have to remove them after 70-80 days? yes I have my resistance worries, but most don't ... why not drop the strips in a bucket of banking soda/water and be done


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## MTN-Bees

I can tell you why for me. When you have 100s of hives and it's a 100 plus degrees, the last thing you want to be doing is placing and pulling cardboard strips out of hives. That doesn't include the prep time for cardboard strips. I would much rather lay a shop towel down and let the bees carry it out.


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## msl

I would much rather have treatment free bees that dealt with the mite them selfs
but we don't all ways get what we want
The point here is people are taking towels and messing with the set up before even trying to replica randys work...
would it not be better to start with the system that was better? 
why aren't people tweaking the strips, is it the position in the hive or the diliverly system that made the difference? could a square of the the same surface area of the strips be placed like a towel and be more effective?


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## Specialkayme

I made a batch of shop towels the first week in March, per Randy's February 12th recipe. I suspected my mite counts would be higher than I wanted them to be at that time, so I had the towels on stand by. Fortunately, I was having a hard time finding a colony that was above 1% infestation at that time (looks like the multiple OAV I did last year helped). So I held onto the towels, sealed in a former MAQS bucket. 

The first week in May I noticed a few hives that were getting higher mite levels (around 2%). So I took four hives and gave them an experimental towel treatment. 2 towels per hive, placed above the broodnest. Mites/bees for the colonies was: 4/300, 11/300, 7/300, 14/300. The 11/300 hive was a monster double deep (with 5 supers above it). The others were strong hives. The monster hive removed the shop towel, in total, in approximately a week. Shredded towels in front of the hives. Two of the hives removed them in between 3 and 4 weeks. One hive removed maybe 15% of the towel in the four week time period. 

Mite counts after one month were, respectively, 3/300, 11/300, 8/300, 7/300. Over a one month time period, if I hadn't treated at all I would have expected mite counts to grow. Only one showed a slight increase, which could have been sampling variations. Most others either decreased or maintained mite levels.

I was concerned that the two month storage may have deteriorated the towel's effectiveness. So last week I made a new fresh batch of towels, this time using the February 12th _method_ and the May 5th _recipe_. I put them back on the original 4 hives, as well as about 20 other hives. I didn't take new mite counts for the four original hives, or the other 20 hives unfortunately. Mainly because I saw a few colonies that had PMS symptoms and I had a roll of OA towels in my hand and no time to come back to do another treatment for two weeks. I improvised  And was low on time so no mite counts. But I'll take a few counts in a week or two when I go back to do an OAV blast to see if they are already low. I'm not expecting them to be. We'll see though.


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## Oldtimer

Thanks, please update in due course.


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## msl

of note randy put an update on the site yesterday 


> As a result of testing this spring, I questioned whether a single-towel treatment provides adequate mite control when colonies are building up in spring and early summer


he is now testing 1.5 towels, looks like the timing may infact matter


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## Bee Arthur

These three hives have OA towels installed _AND_ mite data for both last year and this year. It's difficult to make apples-to-apples comparisons between years, because some hives go through periods of queenlessness due to splits, swarms, etc. There are also a million other factors that could slew data one way or the other.

As you can see from the graphs, I don't really expect the mite levels to go up significantly until July, so my tests next month will be more meaningful. That said, hive "A" has a slightly lower mite load than it did at the same time last year when I didn't have OA towels deployed. Hive B had zero (tested) mites this year, matching last year at the same time. Hive C was up slightly this year, though that hive was a new split in 2016 so it would've been broodless leading up to the late May mite test.


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## Specialkayme

Yesterday I took a mite count on one of the test hives, and cracked a few lids to see how the removal was going. 

The test hive's mite counts were: 11/300 on ~ May 6, 11/300 on June 6, 10/300 on June 14. Still a little too soon to see if the second recipe works, but it doesn't look promising after a week. 

Of the lids I cracked, maybe 2% of the towels have been chewed/removed. Most are being propolized down. They are still soft, a little "greasy" and easy to remove, as evidenced by me pulling on them to move them off a frame I was taking bee samples from (they easily pulled apart). Despite this, the bees aren't working the towels and are actually avoiding them, or so it would seem. 

From my stand point, this is not an effective mite control method. It appears to be preventing mite counts from increasing, but it doesn't cause them to decrease. 

I'll likely need to stop my trial soon and hit the hives with some formic or OAV. Mite levels hovering above 3% gives me heartburn.


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## Vance G

I hope you are wrong. I just put one on a swarm as it is probably loaded with mites. I really worked hard to just get my shop towels damp so will have to see.


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## msl

Specialkayme said:


> Mite levels hovering above 3% gives me heartburn.


if left untreated sure, but you have a long acting treatment
What were you expecting? Randys hives were hanging at 3ish% 
thank you VERY much for posting numbers and dates !




> I just put one on a swarm as it is probably loaded with mites


Why would you do that? They are broodless hit them with oav/oad


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## mbc

Keeping mite levels just about static while bee numbers are getting up to the max is a result in my book.
Interesting thread, fwiw I've been using cardboard strips hung in the brood box with pleasing results, this extra work talked of having to remove the strips is a falacy as far as I can see as the bees chew them up eventually same as towels.


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## Specialkayme

mbc said:


> Keeping mite levels just about static while bee numbers are getting up to the max is a result in my book.


Yes, but if mites are capable of building a resistance to OA, this would likely be a very fast mechanism to achieve resistance. Constant presence/exposure with low kill rates.


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## Richard Cryberg

Specialkayme said:


> Yes, but if mites are capable of building a resistance to OA, this would likely be a very fast mechanism to achieve resistance. Constant presence/exposure with low kill rates.


This is a misconception that has floated around in folk wisdom now since DDT resistance in flies became a problem clear back in the early 1950s. Promotion of resistance development is a very complicated topic and depends on biochemical pathways, pesticide transport issues in the organism and a host of other variables. Depending on all these variables a kill rate as low as 60% can be ideal to minimize resistance development. There was a nice paper in Science about a year ago on the resistance topic in general that showed the ideal kill ratio was totally unpredictable simply because we do not know enough about all the details in how the target processes the pesticide until after resistance has developed. The only really clear thing, contrary to general public perception, is doses well below lethal do not generally induce resistance development as they exert no survival pressure on the target population.

Also, remember that we have lots of examples of pesticides used exclusively for 50 years with zero resistance development and lots of examples where resistance happens very fast, but no examples I know of where resistance became a problem after 20 years of use. Oxalic acid has 20 years of use without a problem so far. That is no assurance it will never become a problem. Mom nature has no rules.


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## mbc

Specialkayme said:


> Yes, but if mites are capable of building a resistance to OA, this would likely be a very fast mechanism to achieve resistance. Constant presence/exposure with low kill rates.


I'm not sure the mode of action of oxalic acid on the mites promotes resistance in the survivors, I imagine it's those that haven't come into contact with concentrated enough acid to abrade their delicate parts that manage to survive and reproduce and next time they come in to contact they will be just as susceptible as will their offspring. We might breed tough exoskeletoned mites but there would be a heavy cost to them.


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## Specialkayme

I've heard it mentioned several times that mites can't breed a resistance to OA. Frankly, I think that's baloney. 

First, we aren't sure how OA kills mites. Ongoing theories are it burns their cuticles, burns their mouthparts, or poisons them. Last I heard, it was a giant question mark. If we don't know how it kills them, how can we say the mites can or can't develop a resistance to it?

I've also heard the analogy that mites developing a resistance to OA is equivalent to humans developing a resistance to a hammer. While I don't agree with the analogy, I still dispute the premise. Humans certainly can develop resistance to a hammer (for example, an alligator's body is literally like armor, which occurred through evolution). The question is how long, and in what form. It might take 1,000 years for the mites to develop resistance, or it might take 3. It depends on pressure. More pressure equals a greater chance of extinction or adaption. 

Even Randy Oliver recommends not leaving the towels on the hives for extended periods of time, as its likely to breed resistant mites. He also highly recommends rotating between OA and another miticide to avoid resistant mites. I don't claim Randy to be omnipotent or anything, but he is a fairly intelligent individual who generally knows his stuff. If he's recommending it, it's probably because he believes it is possible for mites to breed resistance. 

You can tell me otherwise, but I'm not buying it.


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## msl

Maggi's latest paper is a 8 year study of an apiary dosing hives 8X a year with OAD
https://www.researchgate.net/public...a_destructor_against_oxalic_acid_A_study_case
no reissuance was found, 
The flip side is that a .04% OA dose (1/8 therapeutic dose) killed 10% of one strain of mites and 38% of another strain is scary as it is showing a trait that might be be selected for with ineffective dose levels.


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## johno

Specialkayme, If you read the latest American Bee Journal you might find that Randy Oliver has changed his tune a little since some work was done on testing bees that have been treated for 8 years with OA only and the finding was that the OA efficacy was the same for the bees that have been treated for 8 years and the control that had never been treated with OA before. They could become resistant if Nike would make them some foot ware so that their sticky little feet don't get burnt by the OA but then they may not be able to cling to the bees body and would fall off anyway, so if they were to go away from sticky feet they would lose the ability to climb onto bees as easily as they can at this moment.
Johno


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## msl

read the study, it was not the same as the contoral, and that the problem


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## Specialkayme

I've read Randy's ABJ (June issue), but his website updates don't appear to retract from is recommendation not to keep the towels on the hive for extended periods of time, or his strong recommendation to rotate treatments.

I've read the 8 year study. Did before I posted my comments above. It still doesn't change my position. Resistance can, and ultimately will come. Time and pressure is the question. 8 years wasn't enough time. How much is? I have no clue. Could be 9 years, could be 1,000 years. But the amount of selective pressure is also important. OA hasn't been legal (although its been used) in the US for long. Legality brings more widespread use. More widespread use brings more selective pressure. It just takes a hand full of mites, in one part of the world, to breed a resistance to OA and all this comes tumbling down. When is the question.

To believe OA is a viable treatment today is logical. To believe mites are incapable of breeding resistance to OA is a fallacy of thought.


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## johno

msl, on page 723 at the bottom of the left column in the article by Randy Oliver you will find that the one group of colonies was treated 8 times a year for 8 years with OAD, the other had been treated coumaphos flumethrin and amitraz and never treated with organic acids. It goes on to say the colonies that had been treated with OAD for the 8 year period appeared to be more susceptible to the oxalic than the oxalic-naïve population.
Johno


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## msl

I provided a link to the full study in post 467
the locations were 900km apart, non migratory, and didn't have other apaires with in flight range so the mite genetics were more or less stable locally adapted. in such a case its not surprising to find that such a small sample size didn't become resistance. 

The issue here is not that one isolated location didn't develop resistance, Its that a different isolated mite population showed almost 4x more resistance (page 4 of the study) so that means there is difference in in mites and its likly a trait that could be selected for. if they found they had the same amount or resistance it would be a different story. 
the problem is not that you will develop resistance in your yard...The problem is when the sample size becomes millions of hives, some one might, and those mites get spread. ie some one bring them to almonds and shares the wealth, then its every were in a few years. 

the study is also flawed as there is no base line for the test group, so it could be more restaint then when the test started, there is no way to know.

Don't get me wrong, I found it encouraging, but rotation seems like a sound plan to insure a good thing keeps being good

more then anything I fould the repeated used of OAD suprizing given all the internet chatter that any more then 2x a year would be "bad" and am wondering if just puttin OAD on the top bars every mounth or 2 and stop messing around with towels may be the better path


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## Richard Cryberg

msl said:


> The flip side is that a .04% OA dose (1/8 therapeutic dose) killed 10% of one strain of mites and 38% of another strain is scary as it is showing a trait that might be be selected for with ineffective dose levels.


If you find this kind of difference in response meaningful you obviously have never been involved at all in biological testing. Example: In doing an LD50 it is quite common to test with an exposure of 1X, 2X and 3X. It is not at all uncommon to see a higher death rate at 1X than at 2X. In the example you gave my experience says that both tests had statistically equal death rates. Biological testing simply does not give the same precision you expect from many other kinds of tests. It is simply impossible to control for all the variables in biological systems. A tiny change in the grooming genetics of the two test locations could easy lead to this kind of difference for instance. Or even things like differences in weather during the tests at the two locations. Or differences in any number of other variables.

Oxalic acid has been used extensively in Europe for about 20 years. They have not seen a problem.

It really makes no difference if resistance is going to happen or not happen. Oxalic is going to be used and if it turns out to be the best choice it will be abused. Nothing you say or do is going to change that one bit so there is no particular reason to worry about it. No one, myself included, is going to follow best practice and only kill 60% or 75% of their mite population to slow resistance development. Most are so brain washed by folk tales they refuse to understand that is best practice. In my case I just want the SOBs dead.


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## msl

> In the example you gave my experience says that both tests had statistically equal death rates





> A tiny change in the grooming genetics of the two test locations could easy lead to this kind of difference for instance


could you elaborate based on the methods used ? how a tiny change in grooming is going to skew the results or how you are crunching the numbers so its statistically equal when the published range was 2.8-7.8 fold depending on the dose strength (0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4%) 
and yes I don't have a bio testing back ground, which is why I am asking 

 200 µl of each specified con-centration of OA was applied over six mites that remain on a piece of filter paper (3 × 3 cm). After 45 s, the con-tact with the solution was stopped by removing the mites from the paper to a new clean Petri dish (Damiani et al., 2010). Three adult bees were added to each of these new dishes as food for mites 



> It is not at all uncommon to see a higher death rate at 1X than at 2X.


yep the .2% killed less mites then the .1


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## Richard Cryberg

Grooming could pre-injure the mites causing them to be more sensitive. The problem with any biological experiment is there are lots of variables it is difficult or impossible to control. How inbred are the two different mite sources? How old were each of the individual test mites? What was the virus level in each individual mite? Ditto for bacteria and fungi that might impact the mites survival ability? Was each individual mite examined under a microscope to make sure it was not damaged? Were all mites held at the same temp their whole life? Was there some difference between the two strains of bees genetically that could impact mite survival? Were all test mites exposed to the same environmental toxins at the same concentrations their whole life? That includes all essential oils found in nectar. And about 1000 other things.


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## Branman

Just a silly idea...OA and glycerin impregnated Brawny Dine a Max towels?

Knock out Varroa and SHB at the same time?


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## Oldtimer

May not be so silly but you'd have to find out if OA is actually effective against SHB, not sure it is.


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## Rader Sidetrack

I think that _Branman_ is suggesting that the towels themselves (regardless of any oxalic acid) could trap the beetles (a la similar use of Chux)

:shhhh:


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## billabell

But can the bees or would the bees chew up and remove the Brawney Dine or similar towels, which I thought helped distribute the OA.


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## Branman

Brawny Dine a Max is a very effective SHB trap, a la Swiffer sheet(but better IMO). 

https://www.mannlakeltd.com/brawny-dine-a-max-beetle-towel-quarter-sheet-10-pack

The bees do chew it up which makes the fibers loose which traps the SHB which would also distribute the OA. The bees can't remove the sheets though, they're too tough. The question I guess is does OA mitigate the trapping power of the sheets and is the OA effective if the bees can't carry it out.

I was just sorta kidding though


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## CTO322

Has anybody checked their mite count after using the Randy Oliver Shop Towels? I tried them on one yard as per his article. This was and is a strong yard. In general I immediately saw the bees tearing up the towels and carrying them out. Checked one month after the towel were installed and the mite count was still well out of tolerance. Some of the towels were becoming propalized. The bees were simply going around them.
There are about 30 hives in this yard. And five were chosen randomly to do mite test, before and after. We are testing the same hive. If any fails all hives are treated. 
Then used LEGA vaporizer to bring them under control. three treatments about one week apart. 
I look forward to using the shop towels.
Thanks, Charlie


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## johno

The Argentinian's used a cardboard with their mixture and had good results, I think this story of getting the bees to chew up and remove the stuff is where the system is falling down. I believe the longer this stuff stays in the hive and remains a little moist the more chance the bees have of spreading the OA around and killing mites. You would not find the Apivar treatment very good if the bees could remove the strips well before 42 days had passed, from what I have garnered from the use by the South Americans is that they keep this OA glycerin mixture in their hives pretty much all of the spring into summer, so it is a slow acting treatment to be used over a long period of time. Just my thoughts for what they are worth. I would like to do more tests myself but after a season with about 4 weeks of spring flow I spent most of the spring trying to prevent swarming and then went straight into a worsening dearth and now with the heat index way over 100 degrees I don't seem to have the will to get out there every day and fight the robbing that could ensue when I open hives so all I can do is talk.
Johno


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## Bkwoodsbees

Johno I think you hit the nail on the head. I read a report from a study done from Argentina and the results were very effective. I believe the mixture was 10 g of oa to 20ml of glycerin per 45cm x 3cm x 1.5mm strip of cardboard. 4 strips per hive on every other frame in a line. So far the best results.


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## Oldtimer

Interesting, that's a much higher dose per hive than just one towel with 12.5 g OA.


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## gww

I don't remember the dose but randy oliver had better mite kill with the card board tabs (4 to a hive) but did not like other things about it like removal, shb hiding and affecting comb building where they were. It was not that the tabs did not kill better but that they did not kill good enough better to justify the extra work. The whole ideal seemed to be to get something that works that the bees do the work for you.

I thought about going back and looking a the doseing randy used but ended up being to lazy to. Proby good info there though if mite killing is the only thing to be looked at cause I think the tabs did do the best.
Cheers
gww


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## mbc

Bkwoodsbees said:


> Johno I think you hit the nail on the head. I read a report from a study done from Argentina and the results were very effective. I believe the mixture was 10 g of oa to 20ml of glycerin per 45cm x 3cm x 1.5mm strip of cardboard. 4 strips per hive on every other frame in a line. So far the best results.


Any chance of a linky?


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## JoshuaW

MAQS for me.


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## Adam Foster Collins

I've been following this with interest, and I appreciate people experimenting and sharing methods and results, as it's very important to all of us. However, I'm glad to wait for a while before jumping into this myself. There are still a lot of mixed results.

Maybe next season.


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## Specialkayme

CTO322 said:


> Has anybody checked their mite count after using the Randy Oliver Shop Towels?


I did (posted the results earlier in the thread). In a nutshell, over a 3 or 4 week time period mite counts didn't decrease. They didn't increase either, which I would have expected going into a broodless dearth. Which tells me they are killing some mites, just not enough.


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## asd

Oldtimer said:


> Interesting, that's a much higher dose per hive than just one towel with 12.5 g OA.


Here is the original Argentinian formula:

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1505&L=BEE-L&P=37196

They say ~19g soaked OA per one cardboard strip

My numbers are still low so I'm delaying the treatments until I get a "decent" mite number.


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## PeterFerreira

I think I'll stick with OA Vaporizer for now!


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## johno

Be carefull, I have completed 4 rounds of OAV and did some mite counts this morning on 3 hives on a lot of 9, 1st hive 17 mites 2nd hive 3 mites 3rd hive 10 mites. This has happened to me before and I have had to do another round of treatments to get the counts down. So the plan is now to do 3 hives with cardboard OA and glycerin with some in all 3 medium boxes. 3 hives with OA and glycerin fogger every 5 days 4 or 5 treatments and the next 3 just OAV every 5 days 4 or 5 treatments then maybe a week later do counts again. I also did the counts using the sugar roll method, the first one netted 16 mites I then did an alcohol wash on the same bees and the count increased by 1 mite.
Johno


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## minz

JohnO, would you post your proposed mixture and quantity of OA / Glycerin, location of strips and amount per hive? I was thinking of doing it and thought that it may give a nice comparison (if not specifically scientific) to use as a trial base. I am situated with handfuls of hives in 4 locations and it is too hot to do formic out here this week. Thinking of doing half the hives with OA cardboard and use the other half as a base (at least until the weather breaks).


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## johno

Minz I will use the Argentinian formulae which is based on 100 grams of Glycerin to 60 grams of OA. I have made small quantities of this stuff using an old coffee maker which makes it hard to overheat the mixture. I then soak this into half sheets of craft paper, I would like something thicker but this is the best I can find close by. I pour the stuff over the craft paper in a 1 gallon bucket let it soak for a day then use clothes pegs to hold the craft paper to the side of the bucket until the excess stuff has drained off. I will then put the half sheets of craft paper on the top bars of all the boxes in the hive and leave it there for at least a month then do mite counts. I will use the same mix of oa and glycerin to fog the other 3 hives with. I will also see if I can see any mite drops after fogging and OAV.
Johno


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## mbc

johno said:


> Minz I will use the Argentinian formulae which is based on 100 grams of Glycerin to 60 grams of OA. I have made small quantities of this stuff using an old coffee maker which makes it hard to overheat the mixture. I then soak this into half sheets of craft paper, I would like something thicker but this is the best I can find close by. I pour the stuff over the craft paper in a 1 gallon bucket let it soak for a day then use clothes pegs to hold the craft paper to the side of the bucket until the excess stuff has drained off. I will then put the half sheets of craft paper on the top bars of all the boxes in the hive and leave it there for at least a month then do mite counts. I will use the same mix of oa and glycerin to fog the other 3 hives with. I will also see if I can see any mite drops after fogging and OAV.
> Johno


Stick strips of the dosed paper either between or next to brood so the bees chew it and it becomes more effective in my experience.
I've tried a few different cardboard/paper substrates and have found where it is put far more important than dose or concentration of oa, its my opinion that the dose can be lowered significantly if the oag is put by brood so that the bees work it, I've been using cardboard strips with ~11g total of oa + glycerine one either side ofthe nest with far better reesults than towels placed above,


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## Oldtimer

Thanks Mbc, very useful info.


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## casino boy

Were to get 1.5mm cardboard?
Would 60 point chip board be the same?


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## minz

just put a mic to my egg cartons and they are 1.25 mm


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## hex0rz

Stop complicating it. Just get drywall shims from home depot. Or any other local building supply store.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/202343444


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## casino boy

Thanks just cut your pieces soak dry and your ready to go.
Pretty simple would not have thought of them.


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## rangerpeterj

I have been following Randy,s updates.Using July,s update I made up 10 towels and found the mix real wet,but after a while they did stiffen up some what.I put 2 half towels in 5 of my hives, one a week ahead of the other 4 .After rereading Randy,s new receipe and following this thread I realize I put in 10 half towels not 10 full towels.The towels were oily but not real wet and like Oldtimer,s mix mine was more consentrated .I see after 2 weeks on first hive small blue flicks under the hive. I did not open up yet, but I,m hoping for the best.All five hives I did alcohol washes on all 5 prior to treatment they were only running 2% to 1.5%.I will do test at the end of Aug. if this is not effective I will use Johno cheapo vac on them.Love this thread been a lurker until now Pete


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## johno

Can anyone tell me what drywall shims are used for, I just got back from my local building supplier where I asked if they had any drywall shims and they did not know anything about drywall shims.
Johno


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## cervus

johno said:


> Be carefull, I have completed 4 rounds of OAV and did some mite counts this morning on 3 hives on a lot of 9, 1st hive 17 mites 2nd hive 3 mites 3rd hive 10 mites. This has happened to me before and I have had to do another round of treatments to get the counts down. Johno


Johno: Were these OAV treatments using your DIY vaporizer? Also, what was the treatment schedule (i.e. days between treatments)?
Thanks


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## Rader Sidetrack

johno said:


> Can anyone tell me what drywall shims are used for ...


The shims are used to even out wall studs or ceiling joists that are not in the right place to get a smooth/flat plane for mounting drywall sheets without bowing the drywall. Here is one brand:
http://www.grip-rite.com/us/en/products/gypsum-products/drywall-shims


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## johno

Thanks Radar, I will try Lowes next time I am in their area. Yes Cervus I was using my band heater vaporizers sometimes the single heater and later on the double heater, I did 4 treatments on a 7 day cycle. Two years ago I had the same problem and at that time I was using two wands. That year I did another round of 4 treatments and got the counts down real low. Most of my hives now have solid bottom boards so I have not been monitoring the mite drops, I still have some SBB so will try to see how their mite drops go when I use OA in 3 different ways.
Johno


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## johno

I started a treatment regimen with 11 hives on the 10th of August. 3 Banks of three hives for a long term test and 2 young colonies for a short term test of OA/glycerin applied by means of a fogger. The first bank of 3 has 2 1/4 sheets of soaked craft paper on the top bars of 3 of the four medium boxes. The second will be fogged with OA/glycerin mixture every 5 days for 4 treatments and the 3rd set will just get OAV at around 2grams per 5 days also for 4 treatments. The other 2 young colonies got treated with OA/glycerin fog and were inspected on the afternoon of the 11th to see if there were any visible ill effects. There was a light mite drop on the sticky boards of both these hives on the morning of the 11th and the hives and brood appeared not to be affected by the treatment. AS there was such a light mite drop and these hives had already had 4 treatments of OA previously and the fact that I had not done mite counts on these hives I was not sure what the mite density would be so on the afternoon of the 11th I used flash boards and treated both the hives with 90mls of 50% FA. Upon inspection of the sticky boards on the morning of the 12th I found no mites but quite an amount of removed young larvae.
From that I would conclude that the OA/glycerin does drop mites and does not appear as severe as FA.
Johno


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## johno

I should also mention that only one out of the 3 colonies per set has a sticky board underneath, so we have 6 with solid bottoms and 3 with SBB. There were light mite drops on sets 1 and 2 and slightly higher with #3 and OAV. I must apologize for not doing mite counts on these hives before the tests started but I have 24 hives quite close together and in out dearth it does not take much to start robbing frenzies and I have lost large colonies when they start that nonsense. When I have to do mite counts I have to quickly do the work on one end of the yard and then the second at the other end then get out and leave them alone.
Johno


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## Cjj

I was at Mann Lake today, Randy Oliver was there talking with a group of guys, he was saying the 4 by 10 1/2 cardboard strips are getting better results than the shop towels. I was unable to hear the amount of glycerine, OA and water mixture to use. Does anyone have the recipe for this mixture. He said it is higher than the shop towel recipe. Thanks!


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## rangerpeterj

I think this is what your looking for 
From: randy oliver <[email protected]>
Date: August 5, 2017 at 2:42:59 PM MDT
To: Randy Oliver <[email protected]>
Subject: Oxalic shop towel update

Hi All,

We have now completed two formal trials of the OA/gly shop towels--one in dry California, the other in humid Georgia (run by Jennifer Berry and Geoff Williams). We are still analyzing the data, but the treatment gave very promising results--keeping mite counts to the minimum in most treated hives (in 23 out of 24 in the Calif trial) at the 42-day end point. Informal results from several of my other yards were inconsistent, with very good mite control in some, more erratic in others. We have clearly shown proof of concept--now it's up to working out details to improve the method.

To my surprise, we learned that the degree of chewing/removal of the towels did not appear to be correlated with the efficacy against varroa. The take home is that the bees distribute enough OA by simply walking over the towels laid flat over the top bars. This finding opens new avenues for improvement of the method.

We have now started new trials comparing the towel application to an alternative application on three 4" x 10.5" cardboard (chipboard) strips, laid flat across the top bars. This method allows us to change the ratio of OA to glycerin (to produce a more "oily" strip that the bees don't chew), as well as to increase the total OA dose per hive (to ~50 g). (We got decent results at 12 g, better at 18 g, and previously very good at 80 g).

My hope is to now create a strip (similar to that used in Argentina, but applied horizontally, rather than vertically between the frames) that the bees WON'T chew, and that will be easy to flip out of the hive with a hive tool after treatment (the between-frame strips are a pain to remove). We need to see how much the bees will propolize the strips.

We are running two formal late-season trials with the chipboard strips, and I will continue to informally test in my other yards. I'm also running an extended treatment of 84 days with the shop towels.
.
The data that we collect will be presented to EPA in the hope of registering this application method for use even when honey supers are on. I will continue to publish updates with photos to ABJ and then to my website.

I thank you all for the financial support that allows me to continue this research.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com


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## TPalmer

I'm using the Argentinian formula http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/w...=BEE-L&P=37196
Ordered these cardboard shims http://www.homedepot.com/p/Strait-Fl...S-45/202343444
Cut them to 15 inches which will give about 7 inches per side and a half a liter of glycerine and 300mg of OA I soaked 25 strips.


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## Cjj

Thank you but that does not give me the recipe to soak the strips in


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## rangerpeterj

When I miss read his July reciepe and made my half shop towels with 12mg of OA I thought it would be to oily and strong but it looks as though i'll be OK . The bees are busy chewing it up and falling through the SSB This new update seams to validate that Pete


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## Cjj

Going to give this a try


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## scituatema

During the conversation with Randy, he said that 2ml glycerin to 1 gram of oxalic acid.


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## johno

That is closer to what the Argentinians were using which makes quite a wet solution and I think the higher OA mixture would make the solution drier and not spread easily by bees walking and working on the cardboard. We will just have to wait and see.
Johno


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## Outdoor N8

Last year, most of my hives chewed the cells out from under the strips.


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## asd

I've placed the towels 5 days ago using Randy's formula. It was one particular hive that had 4% and checked yesterday and got 0% so this one will be used as reference since it was the most infested hive. The towel is partially torn, dead varroa on it but still active. Will be checking the infestation every week.


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## johno

asd, 5 days is not long enough the treatment is supposed to go on for 2 brood cycles. I somehow do not think the 4% to 0% could have been due to the OA/glycerin.
Johno


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## asd

johno said:


> asd, 5 days is not long enough the treatment is supposed to go on for 2 brood cycles. I somehow do not think the 4% to 0% could have been due to the OA/glycerin.
> Johno


Yes... the numbers may be just sampling chance. I'm aware of that. It's impossible for the towel to resist for 2 brood cycles. As I said I'll be checking weekly.


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## msl

I had been thinking on this a bit and randys report makes me think harder on it, why not a strip or tube kinda thing by the entrance for the bees to walk on as they they come and go


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## johno

Msl, I have also had a similar thought so as to lay a 3" piece of soaked cardboard across the entrance on the bottom board inside the hive. I would still have the strips on the top bars of the brood chamber boxes.
Johno


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## JoshuaW

I used the cardboard strips last year and laid some across the top bars: the bees did not remove them. They only removed the ones draped over the frames.


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## Cjj

How did they work for you ? And what formula did u use?


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## asd

One week later and only seen one mite after the sugar shake.

Aug 12 - 4 mites & treat
Aug 15 - 0 mites
Aug 20 - 1 mite
...


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## Cjj

I mixed up some OA and Glycerin yesterday , 1/2 liter Glycerin to 300 g of OA soaked 24, 4 X 10 1/2 pics of chipboard overnight , checked this morning all the mixture was absorbed but the chipboard was not completely soaked, i did flip them so about the center of the strips ,3/4 of an inch did not get any solution on them any Ideas ? thanks


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## TPalmer

Did my first inspection since inserting the cardboard strips three weeks ago. I used the Argentine formula ( 1 liter to 600mg) and for cardboard, I used drywall shims cut to 15 inches folded over the top bars. I was unable to do a sugar roll at first due to the neighbors. The one thing that I noticed when inspecting is that the queen will not lay under the cardboard strips. I placed the cardboard strips in the middle so what I get now is brood on both sides of the strip top to bottom and nectar in the middle.


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## Beekkirk

..


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## Beekkirk

Three weeks ago I treated 15 hives with 80g of o.a/glycerin mixture on chipboard. I used Randy Olivers revised formula of 2ml of gylcerin to 1 gram of oxalic acid. I did an alcohol wash on all the hives before treatment. Mite loads ranged from 0% to 4%(0-12 mites per 300 bee sample). I just did an alcohol wash on all 15 hives this weekend(three weeks after placing strips) and 14 of the hives had the same exact mite load (+ or - one mite) one hive had gone up significantly. 

Treatment seems to be holding my mite loads at the same level.
Normally this time of year mite loads will rapidly expand without treatment. 
For comparison the rest of my 140 hive operation received o.a vaporization with the vm vaporizer 5-7 days apart. After testing one whole pallet in everyone of my bees yards my average mite load is less the 1%. Many of the hives were tested before vaporization and hives with 5% were brought down to 1%.


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## JRG13

Interesting results Beekkirk.


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## Gypsi

I was gonna try the glycerin solution, but A. my local bee club said it isn't approved yet? and B, Beekkirk's results indicate I should maybe just stick with OAV


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## johno

I have had OA/glycerin in 3 hives for close to 30 days and will wait for 40 days before again doing mite counts. If this treatment will hold the increase in mite growth it might still be worthwhile doing in early spring if it will prevent mite growth into summer. OAV can still be used to treat when broodless to really knock them down.
Johno


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## homegrown

Beekkirk said:


> Three weeks ago I treated 15 hives with 80g of o.a/glycerin mixture on chipboard. I used Randy Olivers revised formula of 2ml of gylcerin to 1 gram of oxalic acid. I did an alcohol wash on all the hives before treatment. Mite loads ranged from 0% to 4%(0-12 mites per 300 bee sample). I just did an alcohol wash on all 15 hives this weekend(three weeks after placing strips) and 14 of the hives had the same exact mite load (+ or - one mite) one hive had gone up significantly.
> 
> Treatment seems to be holding my mite loads at the same level.
> Normally this time of year mite loads will rapidly expand without treatment.
> For comparison the rest of my 140 hive operation received o.a vaporization with the vm vaporizer 5-7 days apart. After testing one whole pallet in everyone of my bees yards my average mite load is less the 1%. Many of the hives were tested before vaporization and hives with 5% were brought down to 1%.


Thanks for posting the update on the new recipe. Where did you find the chipboard/cardboard?


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## mbc

johno said:


> I have had OA/glycerin in 3 hives for close to 30 days and will wait for 40 days before again doing mite counts. If this treatment will hold the increase in mite growth it might still be worthwhile doing in early spring if it will prevent mite growth into summer. OAV can still be used to treat when broodless to really knock them down.
> Johno


I treated with cardboard strips hung between frames on the outside of the nest this spring and found the bees removed the strips over some time as the nest expanded onto the frames they were on, I could barely count a mite all summer after this treatment and am planning to do the same next spring. I've put in strips again after harvesting the honey but am doubtful they will be as effective placed on the outside of a contracting nest.
I used a 1/1 oa/glycerine mix soaked into cereal packet cardboard cut into ~1inch x 12 inch strips 2 or three to a box ~ 11g of the mix in each strip.


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## mbc

johno said:


> I have had OA/glycerin in 3 hives for close to 30 days and will wait for 40 days before again doing mite counts. If this treatment will hold the increase in mite growth it might still be worthwhile doing in early spring if it will prevent mite growth into summer. OAV can still be used to treat when broodless to really knock them down.
> Johno


I treated with cardboard strips hung between frames on the outside of the nest this spring and found the bees removed the strips over some time as the nest expanded onto the frames they were on, I could barely count a mite all summer after this treatment and am planning to do the same next spring. I've put in strips again after harvesting the honey but am doubtful they will be as effective placed on the outside of a contracting nest.
I used a 1/1 oa/glycerine mix soaked into cereal packet cardboard cut into ~1inch x 12 inch strips 2 or three to a box ~ 11g of the mix in each strip.


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## dsegrest

I tried the shop towel thing on about 20 hives. The bees glued the shop towels down with propolis.


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## snl

Found this in a very old post.......


P_*APER TOWEL method called OsInAl (OxalSaure In Alcohol). OsInAl can be used in fall, even when colonies are breeding. You can leave the OsInAl tissue in the hive during the winter. OsInAl is NOT suitable to treat strongly infested colonies in summer. It is useful to treat splits with OsInAl. The bees must have contact with the tissue. OsInAl is not immediately effective like OA trickling. The effect lasts over several months. 

Formula for 40 tissues: 200g oxalic acid, 1 liter 70-90% alcohol, 50g citric acid. You can use thin tissue (cheap towels for cleaning) made of PE-fibers or other artificial material in size of 20x25cm (about 8x10). Dissolve the oxalic and the citric acid in the alcohol. Put the batch of towels in a plastic container and spill the solution over the towels. The alcohol is used to resolve the oxalic acid. The alcohol evaporates within 2-3 days and the OA is evenly spread in the towels. Pay close attention, alcohol kills the bees! Do not use the towels soaking wet! Citric acid (hygroscopic) is needed to (keep) towels wet in the hive. OsInAl works much better, when the towel is wet. Kills 60-90% of the mites. 
*_


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## justin

Randy gave a talk at the ABF last week that had new information for me (i don't follow his website). He said that he was getting good results with 18g vs. the 80 grams recommended in european trials. He said that the bees don't need to chew up the towels as long as the VG to OA numbers were right. He said with too much VG the bees were avoiding the towels altogether, to little and the towel dries out, it doesn't get passed around. Excuse my ignorance on this one, but he said the reason that the trials in North Carolina (i think) didn't work was entire hives were crashing during the trial and those bees were infecting other hives in the trials. He also had new data from recent trials which i imagine he has posted elsewhere. The numbers look promising to me. He talked about trying to patent the process, and has the trial set up so that if it is approved it should be approved for treating with supers on. He also said he is looking for hives with heavy mite loads right now to continue his trials. I hope i have spoken accurately, and am not just repeating things everyone else knows, thanks


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## homegrown

Thanks for the update, I couldn’t make it to the ABF last week. Is Randy ditching the water addition to the shop towel recipe? Does anyone have this new recipe for one roll of shop towels (roll cut in half)?


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## Branman

If it's the same trials, it was in NE Georgia and it was crashing control hives nearby that migrated tons of mites to the "treated hives" that they think skewed their numbers. That's the hypothesis anyways. The other trial in Georgia was promising.


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## justin

that was the trial, thanks. He was adding water still, explaining that it was just for getting the mixture into the towels but expects it all to evaporate i believe. He also mentioned going as low as 10g with the OA, but the results we saw were from 18g.


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## gmcharlie

After reading this I asked Randy, to clear the air, there is No intent or thought to patent anything! all has work has been and is publicly shared for everyone.


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## justin

my bad on that. FDA approval was what he was talking about, and ways to get that approval with supers on.


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## jeetS

Anyone still doing this?


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## KellyW

I am using the cellulose sponge as described in the 2019 publication.








Extended-Release Oxalic Acid Progress Report #5 - 2019 - Scientific Beekeeping


Contents Background. 2 The 2019 field test. 2 Results. 4 Those danged outliers!. 6 Overall efficacy. 7 Could there have been mite immigration from other colonies?. 8 Fate of the applied towels. 9 progression of action of treatment over time. 13 Results from others. 14 Mexico and uruguay. 14...




scientificbeekeeping.com





I haven’t done an alcohol wash so can’t report on the success yet.


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## jeetS

KellyW said:


> I am using the cellulose sponge as described in the 2019 publication.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Extended-Release Oxalic Acid Progress Report #5 - 2019 - Scientific Beekeeping
> 
> 
> Contents Background. 2 The 2019 field test. 2 Results. 4 Those danged outliers!. 6 Overall efficacy. 7 Could there have been mite immigration from other colonies?. 8 Fate of the applied towels. 9 progression of action of treatment over time. 13 Results from others. 14 Mexico and uruguay. 14...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> scientificbeekeeping.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I haven’t done an alcohol wash so can’t report on the success yet.


Thanks for the reply, how long have you been doing it? Thinking about giving it a try.


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## KellyW

jeetS said:


> Thanks for the reply, how long have you been doing it? Thinking about giving it a try.


hi jeetS,
I’ve been using it about 8 weeks.


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## jjayf

I would love to hear about how you have experienced how effective its been. I have been doing the cardboard strips. I have been keeping them in all my hives for two seasons and use multiple other treatments so its been hard to determine how effective they have been on thier own.


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