BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER > DISEASE & PEST CONTROL

Oxalic acid with screened bottom boards

(1/5) > >>

hydrocynus:
Hello, I read conflicting info about OA use and screened bottom boards. OA is a strong organic acid but would it eat my galvanized #8 screened bottom boards ? I have read that people use the vaporizer just below the screen and over a board to seal the hive. I can imagine that this would be detrimental but what if you just seal the hive with a thin wood board over the screen and then treat with OA? Thanks. Making a band heater vaporizer so heat is outside the hive.

Beeboy01:
It's possible to use a vaporizer on top of the hive instead of under the screened bottom board if you are worried about exposing the screen to OAV. Make a 2 inch high spacer with a notch in it for the wand, place it on the top super with the outer cover on top and run the OAV treatment from the top of the hive. I've been treating a nuc tower that way for about six months and I can't see why you couldn't treat a full sized hive the same way. I place a small piece of metal like a cut up soup can under the heating element to keep it off the top of the frames.
  Sealing the hive by slipping a piece of thin plywood into the front of the hive works but then some of the bees come into contact with the heater element and get killed. A thin sheet of metal would be better just because of how hot the element can get.       

BeeMaster2:
I use SBBs and OAV.  I have a small hole drilled in the oil tray board on the back of the trays of the ones that I built or just under the #8 wire on the hives that do not have oil trays. I added a corrugated plastic board onset the hives for treatment.
Jim

blackforest beekeeper:
OA will eat galvanized steel even if used from the top. In Germany all screens are made of stainless steel. That will last.
Formic Acid has the same, if worse, problem.

hydrocynus:
Wow. Stainless steel mesh seems expensive. I will make cheap bottom boards and treat them replace with my screen bottoms. I am building a band heater OA vaporizer so my heating element is outside and the fumes are cold.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page