Bill,

I agree that dosing pads individually would be the most accurate and if working on a large scale devising an assembly line doser would not be too technically difficult and on a small scale the syringe would work fine. However I take a more primitive approach. I stack the pads flat 2 per layer, in a 2 gallon bucket, hole side down, with a tight lid and pour in the total formic load, swirl it around for 30 seconds or so as the formic absorbs and let sit overnight. The next morning I invert the bucket for a few hours and then back upright just before heading to the yard. A couple of years ago having exactly your question I weighed some random pads from the stack and found them to be very nearly equal. No more than a few grams different from top to bottom so I figure that given time the pads reach near equilibrium, at least close enough that it is no greater than other colony variables. I saw on a New Zealand site that they stacked the pads on end in the bucket. Maybe for better distribution but for me they slumped down and made it harder to pick out one at a time with the needle nose pliers I use.

If others have a better plan we would all love to hear about it. Thanks in advance.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html