Hi all
I was wondering if anyone had similar experience to this:

How to torch your hive with an oxalic acid vaporizer

A newer beekeeper who reported the incident, explained that she accompanied a seasoned beekeeper to his apiary to learn about applying oxalic acid with a vaporizer. Here is the story, edited for brevity:

The one hive caught fire. It was hectic trying to get the boxes apart and watering the hive down to stop the flames.  The flames were shooting out everywhere. I don’t know if the bees will be able to recover or not.  He would not permit me to clean up the hive; he just put the hive back together, dead bees and all, and said the bees will fix the hive.

This is not how I do things, and I probably will not go with this person ever again.  It was disturbing to me.  If it was my hive, I would have cleaned it out, checked [to see] if the queen was still alive, etc. [I would] not just shut it up and leave the bees devastated as they were.

What else I didn’t like is…the bees continued to “attack” this poker and thus burn themselves up.…When you take the poker out, there are several bees on the end of the poker burnt to a crisp.

We did 35 hives and all did the same thing.  Some ran out of the hive so fast, it wasn’t even funny. [The bees] actually “attack” the rod [when] it’s hot, touch it, and the end just burns them up. I even asked the guy about why he thought the bees would attack something so hot.

The vapors will knock you out. The one guy I went with got a good whiff, and I had to catch him; he almost fell over.  I think one is supposed to wear a respirator, as breathing in these fumes causes one to cough and gag, and inside it probably does more harm to the lungs.  I tried to watch the way the wind was blowing and then stand on the other side.

https://honeybeesuite.com/how-to-torch-your-hive-with-oxalic-acid-vaporizer/

             ***********************************************
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