# OA Treatment - OA in Everclear through Fogger



## stanton21 (Sep 30, 2016)

I am experimenting with this now. I seem to can't get the fogger to make a heavy cloud of OA.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

A few have tried it, but they won't provide any info about mite fall, mite counts, etc. So no one knows whether it works, yet.

The linked video:



Bolichsbees said:


> Here's the video...
> https://youtu.be/timAIlH_1OQ


is a classic example. The guy swears it works, but provides no supporting evidence. We have no idea whether he has monitored or counted mites or done something else to gauge effectivity, so, he, himself is clueless as to whether it works. Unfortunately, his audience is left clueless, too. Obviously, he can do whatever he wants, but posting a video about a relatively new method of treating for mites with no information to show it works doesn't help anyone decide whether to use that method.

Anyone remember fogging mites with mineral oil? Lot's of folks swore by it but never bothered to check to see if it really killed many mites. Turned out to be ineffective despite all the noise and smoke.




.


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## Sickdog5 (Jun 8, 2016)

Dude in video seems pretty confident. But didn't see much of a cloud of smoke.


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## Matt yocham (Aug 3, 2016)

I have a fogger and ordered the acid, as soon as it gets here i am going to do a wash on the 3 hives that i have not treated this year. I will then make up some kind of sticky board and fog the high mite count hives. I will fog 4 time every 5 days after that i will do another wash and see what happens. I will post what the results are and we will then know alittle better if it works ot not.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Matt yocham said:


> I have a fogger and ordered the acid, as soon as it gets here i am going to do a wash on the 3 hives that i have not treated this year. I will then make up some kind of sticky board and fog the high mite count hives. I will fog 4 time every 5 days after that i will do another wash and see what happens. I will post what the results are and we will then know alittle better if it works ot not.


That'd be great and would really help folks out.

Photos of a witness board 3 days after fogging is all that is needed, at least as a start. Super quick and no counting required. If this fogging method doesn't produce good mite falls, there is no need to do any further testing.


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## Delta 21 (Mar 4, 2016)

Simple heating of OA alone sublimates and crystallizes when it cools back down. (Right?) The alcohol is the carrier so it will work out of that kind of fogger? If the alcohol is coming out as a liquid (partially)this seams more like a OA Splatter technique with partial vaporization. I think my rudimentary crack pipe is more efficient than that.

My treatments have worked out to 3-4 a year. Even as prophylactic treatments, once a month seems overly aggressive considering the reproduction speed of the mites. Possibly the inefficiency of the device has something to do with this.(?)


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

If there is any liquid coming out of the fogger it has not been heated for a sufficient amount of time. It is quite common for the device to dribble a little liquid from the tip during the heating up period however once preheated for about 2 minutes a pump of the trigger will dispel any liquid from the nozzle area and then only vapor will be visible. I am waiting for some ethyl alcohol so that I can try the oa/alcohol mix out. I have tried out an OA/ glycerin mix in my fogger and have seen some mite drop without any ill effects to the 2 colonies I used it on and will pick 2 more colonies to try the oa/ alcohol mix on. the OA/ glycerin mixture emits very white fog and I could not smell any of the oa vapor smell associated with oav. I do not think you would get such a dense fog with the alcohol as it is more volatile than mineral oil and glycerin and I am interested to test the smell of the alcohol based substance.
johno


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

If you tilt the fogger downward it's going to spray some liquid. Then it lights the liquid on fire. 
Learned this the hard way. 
Have been using oav thru a yard fogger this season and from my observations it was effective at reducing the amount of crawlers in my yard. This spring it was chronic with shiny bald black bees crawling. (bee paralysis) 
Treated four times. Called day 1 day zero and did it every seven days for three weeks for a total of four applications to every hive I got.

I'm thinking I'll do MAQ's to every hive in September then give them all a shot of OAV thru the VarroX in late November or early-December. Probably should not rely on any one treatment or delivery method so I'm mixing it up a little.

Am treating forty colonies roughly. The fogger is quick and appealed to me. 
If you want actual scientific research with purpose, procedure, data, analysis, and a conclusion ... someone start an aunt betty go-fund-me and I'll do the work once the money is in the bank. 

Am surrounded by TF beeks who lose a lot of bees so forget about total elimination of mites. It simply can not happen here right now.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

Seems like a waste of good alcohol, but see you are from Tennessee so suppose you make your own. But seriously, how is this any easier and safer to the bees than using a vaporizer? J


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Fivej, when something different comes along one should give it a fair trial and take a good look at the results. Using a fogger is much quicker than any other means of treating also bear in mind no battery or power cord to lug around. I have tried out OA and glycerin in the fogger and there is a definite mite drop without any perceivable harm to the bees and will now see if the mite drop continues for a longer period than just using OAV. As soon as I get my hands on some ethyl alcohol I will try that out in the fogger and see what I can learn from it. Remember I am always looking for that better mousetrap.
Johno


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Is it just me? I know I sell vaporizers but none of them can explode. High heat and alcohol just seem like an accident waiting to happen. A faulty gun or a stumble on a rock or branch or ??? and.....
Not only that, but is it really OA that is going into the hive or is the OA breaking down into formic and C02?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I have access to 99.9% citric acid. How do I use it for the mite application?


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

beepro said:


> I have access to 99.9% citric acid. How do I use it for the mite application?


And we're supposed to know how? Hey BP, whatever became of your OAV gadge?


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## Bolichsbees (Jul 31, 2016)

johno said:


> If there is any liquid coming out of the fogger it has not been heated for a sufficient amount of time. It is quite common for the device to dribble a little liquid from the tip during the heating up period however once preheated for about 2 minutes a pump of the trigger will dispel any liquid from the nozzle area and then only vapor will be visible. I am waiting for some ethyl alcohol so that I can try the oa/alcohol mix out. I have tried out an OA/ glycerin mix in my fogger and have seen some mite drop without any ill effects to the 2 colonies I used it on and will pick 2 more colonies to try the oa/ alcohol mix on. the OA/ glycerin mixture emits very white fog and I could not smell any of the oa vapor smell associated with oav. I do not think you would get such a dense fog with the alcohol as it is more volatile than mineral oil and glycerin and I am interested to test the smell of the alcohol based substance.
> johno


Hey Johno,

I have followed your comments about the fogger for some time, good to have you comment. From all the reading I've done, it seems to me the OA/alcohol mix would be the way to go. Shinbone is correct... If someone who has the equipment could test, having a screened bottom board with insert in place, we would have drop results in 3 days. 

Anxious to see how this could work.

bb


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## Bolichsbees (Jul 31, 2016)

aunt betty said:


> If you tilt the fogger downward it's going to spray some liquid. Then it lights the liquid on fire.
> Learned this the hard way.


Yeah, that sounds bad. So you kept the fogger tilted up? With this technique, no liquid came out?



aunt betty said:


> Have been using oav thru a yard fogger this season and from my observations it was effective at reducing the amount of crawlers in my yard.


How did you determine it's effectiveness? 

Thx Aunt Betty


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Snl, I have been doing tests with OA/glycerin fogging and have found mites falling after the fogging, the interesting outcome so far is that mites are still dropping4 days later whereas the ones that I treated with OAV only dropped mites for 2 days so will keep up the trial and see how it works out after 4 treatments. It appears that the OA/glycerin remains in the hive little longer than the OAV crystals. At this point I have been unable to ignite the fog as can be done with mineral oil. From what I have seen of the OA/alcohol fogging it also does not ignite as easily as mineral oil.
Johno


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

J,
Still think it's playing with fire. One misstep could cause a lifetime of injury. For what, a couple of $$ ?


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Snl, are you referring to the use of 110v and cords causing electrocution, I hope not as any technical minded person who was worried about that would have a ground fault protection outlet on his cord! But maybe you are thinking of those narrow minded guys who have read law and do not have enquiring minds LOL. As they say in the classics " If the cap fits wear it "
Johno


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

Did before test mite counts on ten treated hives and ten controls all in the same yard. All were under 1%. Fogged once a week for eight weeks. Did mite counts. No difference in counts between treated hives and controls. Highest individual count I got was 4% on a treated hive. All hives counts either stayed the same or went up. Bees used are pretty hygienic so not at all surprised at many untreated hive counts not going up. See this all the time.

Conclusion: Fogging is 100% ineffective at killing mites and a total waste of time.

Note: While I call it fogging, it really is not fogging. A lot of unvaporized liquid comes spurting out when the trigger is pulled even if I wait 20 seconds between trigger pulls. It is more like spraying but when aimed in the entrance does not wet the bees nearly as effectively as a dribble would.

Note: I also see considerably lower virus symptoms this year compared to last year. I wonder why the year to year variation?


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## Groundhwg (Jan 28, 2016)

snl said:


> And we're supposed to know how? Hey BP, whatever became of your OAV gadge?


I thought it was to be on the market by now. Never did get to see it work. Was it better than the fogger?


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Richard I am trying OA/glycerin fog, when the fogger is heated for a couple of minutes no liquid comes out of the nozzle ,fog only. there was a definite mite drop which continued for 3 days so far whereas the hives treated with OAV only dropped mites for 2 days. Two young colonies treated with OA/ glycerin fog dropped quite a few mites and the next day were treated with 50% FA with no more mite drops but lots of young larvae on the sticky boards. I was going to try the alcohol/OA fogging on some other hives so just wonder what formulation you used as I intended to use 30grams of OA per 100 grams of alcohol. The glycerin fog comprised of 60grams of OA to 100grams of glycerin.
Johno


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Groundhwg said:


> I thought it was to be on the market by now. Never did get to see it work.


Because it didn't.


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## Groundhwg (Jan 28, 2016)

snl said:


> Because it didn't.


I have found that these do a great job for me. http://oxavap.com/


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

snl said:


> And we're supposed to know how? Hey BP, whatever became of your OAV gadge?


Sasquatch must have stolen the prototype.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

johno said:


> there was a definite mite drop which continued for 3 days so far whereas the hives treated with OAV only dropped mites for 2 days. Two young colonies treated with OA/ glycerin fog dropped quite a few mites and the next day were treated with 50% FA with no more mite drops but lots of young larvae on the sticky boards.


 Good plan to us FA to check for efficient, thanks for posting some details, but the data is not adding up so there is a hole some were. 
If OAG fog drops mites for 3 days why was there no mite drop with FA a day later? No matter how you cut it should be droping mites, so that calls the collection of data in to question. 
even with a perfect OAV and zero brood on, one would expect some mite drop with effective FA follow up


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

A couple friends and I wanted to try fogging with OA, so we bought one of THESE. We are not 'for' or 'against' this method or this particular device, just asking questions and testing. Per the instructions, we mixed 100ml ethanol alcohol with 25 grams of Oxalic Acid and administered it using a VAROMOR fogger. Six puffs of this mix were administered at three day intervals to a ten frame hive (one deep and one empty medium). We did not use a rag to close the entrance (it was calm or <5mph of air movement). 

_This treatment, although not covering a complete brood cycle, (see details below), reduced the mite count_.

We checked ourselves out on use of the fogger, learning for ourselves what Johno has reported above. With R Cryberg's words about OA going directly to formic acid and other residues ringing in our ears, we tested the operation of the device using low heat. At low heat settings, the OA did NOT vaporize, it left a wet streak of moist OA on the test board. At a heat setting in the middle of the adjustment available, the OA did vaporize so that is what we used (see note 1 below). 

We treated one ten frame deep hive with an empty medium super three times at three day intervals, when the original canister of butane ran out of gas! Those pierceable gas canisters are NOT available in the US!! inch: We should have purchased  THIS FOGGER, it has an adaptor for gas canisters sold in the USA...they were not available when we made our purchase.

We did an alcohol wash (washing and rinsing three times, then counting) and found a 3.2% infestation on 340 bees Pretreatment. Post treatment (covering 9 calendar days + two extra days to let the OA work) we did the same three rinse process to find 1.9% infestation on 372 bees. We had administered OA through just over half the brood cycle when we ran out of fuel...A real bummer. These descriptive statistics suggest a substantive effect on mite reduction, and I will say that for a few hives it is fast and easy. The best thing is that you can put the nozzle in a very small hole while treating and not disturb the colony that much at the entrance.

The fogger instructions recommended a mineral oil rinse after use and we did that each time, after an initial water rinse. 

Instructions also included mixing recipes for a couple synthetic acaricides we will N-E-V-E-R use. Also included was a recipe for a OA/thymol/ethanol mixture that is very interesting and bears more investigation.

Our conclusion is that this method bears more investigation. However, we are delayed in our process because of the lack of fuel and an unwillingness to buy another unit or ship these canisters from Europe at huge shipping cost.

Note 1- The gas flow adjustment had 33 increments from 'off' to 'full on'. We used a setting of 16, counting the bumps on the knob as it was rotated. This was the midpoint of the adjustment. No temperatures were recorded to document temperature range.

Note 2- We meant to be deliberate in this test, but our conclusions are a place to start, not a proof this device works or does not work...simply that more investigation is warranted before concluding this is the latest thing to do for mite mediation. Your results may vary.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Msl, The tests I set out to do were on 3 sets of 3 production hives where their honey had been harvested and they mostly consisted of 4 med 8frame boxes full of bees. One of these colonies per group of 3 has had mites counts done prior tp the beginning of the tests. One of each set of three has a sticky board and 2 have solid bottom boards. as an after thought I decided to fog 2 young colonies that were started this year just to see how many mites would fall and then to do an FA treatment on those young hives to see how many remaining phoretic mites might fall. Two of the 3 sets of 3 hives will be treated with fog and OAV and the 3rd set will be left for 42 days before doing mite counts. So perhaps you can explain what your question is. It would appear to me that the 2 young hives fogged dropped all the phoretic mites they had that is why no further mites dropped and the fact that there was young brood kill points to the fact that the FA applied should have been sufficient to kill any remaining phoretic mites.
Johno


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

I omitted to mention that the hives being fogged and treated with OAV will be treated 4 times at 5 day intervals.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

johno said:


> It would appear to me that the 2 young hives fogged dropped all the phoretic mites they had that is why no further mites dropped and the fact that there was young brood kill points to the fact that the FA applied should have been sufficient to kill any remaining phoretic mites.


Yes that would say you got one day 100% kill of phoretic mites witch is in direct contrast to your 3 day kills and off the scope in tums of effectiveness, both red flags.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

johno said:


> I omitted to mention that the hives being fogged and treated with OAV will be treated 4 times at 5 day intervals.
> Johno


There has been recent discussion on the Bee-L list about how long after application the OA remains deadly to the mites and how that would dictate treatment timing. It would seem that, whatever application regiment you use, it should be repeated every four days for optimum results. Here is a Randy Oliver quote from Bee-L this past week:



Randy Oliver on Bee-L said:


> ...as best I can tell, the immediate effect of dribbled or vaporized OA upon mite drop lasts for only 2-3 days. There may be additional delayed effect not evident in the rate of mite drop. This is why it appears to be important to repeat vaporization at approx 4-day intervals.


I will adopt this four day interval until a better recommendation comes down the line...I trust Randy.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Msl, All the hives that have been treated here have already gone through 4 treatments of OAV at seven day intervals in July. The sets of 3 are strong hives in 4 boxes, the 2 young hives are small hives in 2 boxes and as I have not done mite counts on them I could not know the mite infestation of those small hives and I can only tell you the results I saw. One of the problems I have always had with OAV treatments is that some times one gets better results than others and in this case it is possible that the larger more active hives had more phoretic mites or emerging mites than the small less active hives. The fact thatresults do not meet your criteria is neither here nor there as mite counts at the end of the treatment regimen can be measured against the mite counts before the tests began. As the mite drops from the 2 small hives was not large maybe in the 20 area it would seem to me that their infestation was very light, the reason for the FA treatment was to verify that and in my opinion did so.
Johno


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## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

I can see where this would work.The boiling point being 173 degrees on ethanol it would sure boil off way before the oxalic acid turned to formic acid.With the fogger being adjustable on the heat it can be controlled so it doesnt get up in that heat range also.The alcohol being an enhancer like in medicines could also benefit.Also I can see water and glycerin being used also.


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## eranorion (Oct 12, 2008)

*Varomor Re: OA Treatment -*

Can anyone tell me where to get a USA fuel canister adapter for this fogger, as I have unintentionally purchased a European version with only pierceable can usable. There must be a way to do it, but cannot find ANY mention on the net of how to.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

*Re: Varomor Re: OA Treatment -*

I had the same problem. No luck solving it. Most beekeepers have concluded this method has gone the way of fogging mineral oil, (meaning, it hasn't been scientifically validated).


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