# Oxalic Acid Vaporizer (oav). Sealing time after treatment?



## Coach62 (Mar 26, 2016)

If I could tag onto your thread - who does OA treatments other than vaporizer, how and why do you do it and how effective is it?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

You can test out the burn to see how long it takes for the oav to stop in
open area outside. I use my oav gadget under the hive. So as soon as I
take out the burner the oav stop. I waited one minute or so then move
on to the next hive. Not sure if this is what you have also.

Coach, Randy Oliver has published his findings on the oav and the dripple
method. Just do a search to read up on it.


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## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

I vaporize for 2.5 minutes, turn the power off and leave the vaporizer in for another 2.5 minutes, then pull the vaporizer out and seal with a damp rag for 10 minutes (+/-). A lot of vapor slowly leaks out of the hive during the last 10 minutes and the roar of the bees is loud. I think the 10 minutes is important to achieve full coverage.


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## radu43 (May 29, 2011)

Beepro, that is exactly what I do. Thanks for the confirmation. 
Norcalkyle,
that is what I'm wondering about. My understanding is that the vapors turn to crystals in couple of minutes, but if you see vapors past 2 minutes, I might be totally wrong on my assumptions.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

When the bees fan while vaporizing they distributed the crystals
all over. When the burning stops so is the vapor and crystals. 
I think allowing the extra 10 minutes is to make sure the hive is clear of
the vapor. What can be gained when all the crystals are already in the hive and
bees when you burn them in the 2 minutes run? In real time open area I have
experimented a lot with the burning. As soon as I take out the burn source the
vapor and crystals also stop vaporizing. Got a vid of it to prove too! I burn both
inside the hive and on open area.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Different brands of wands have different user instructions so you should go with what's specified for your particular equipment.

I follow the directions that came with my *Varrox* vaporizer:

2 min 30 sec powered burn;

2 min more with power off but with the wand still inside hive to complete the sublimation using residual heat in the pan;

10 min shut-in time after I have withdrawn the wand;

In very cold temps, i.e. low 40s and below, I add up to 15 secs more to the active burn time to compensate for the cold conditions. I arrived at this number by doing a test burns outside the hive.

Enj.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Nancy in post #7 hit the nail on the head!


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## cavscout (Apr 21, 2015)

I don't see the benefit of keeping the hive sealed. Once the OA is done burning and it crystalizes the process is done. The vapors turn into crystal after a few minutes, so why keep it sealed? I do my treatments from the top of the hive and after the OA burns I wait two minutes and move on.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

cavscout said:


> I don't see the benefit of keeping the hive sealed. Once the OA is done burning and it crystalizes the process is done.


Not quite. The vaporization is done but you want the vapors to remain in the hive to coat all the surfaces to be picked up by the mites. What's the point of vaporizing and then letting a lot of the OA out? This is not just me saying this, this is what is recommended by studies and the manufacturers of the vaporizers who have done (and been doing this) for years........


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