I read the same thing in my travels. I keep the length short so the pot is just past the front lip of the hive body. I also fixed the rod into a mock entrance reducer so I inset the "entrance reducer" with rod into the hive. This positions the pot above the floor and below the frames.It is still not foolproof. I can see a problem if you do not cool down the vaporizer between applications because if you still measure the time it as if it were cold, you burn off the OA but are still heating the pot. Until the OA is vaporized, the pot will be around the heat of vaporization, but allow it to heat after that and you are looking for a fire. The Varrox vaporizer is one of the more expensive, and in hind sight I would have bought it because it can be immersed in water between hives. It also has a spacer like my home made entrance reducer to position it hopefully away from contact with the hive's interior. It also is the one that led me to question why the am treatment since it is wide open at its bottom and would allow lots of fumes to escape. It is also recommended by some guy named Randy Oliver- never hear of him. I am content with mine since it works fine and I have a limited number of hives to treat and can wait between treatments. I did melt a bit of plastic frame in one treatment. So I conducted a test to see what would happen if I left it in the pot and did an open OA vaporization.. The OA vaporized in my standard 2 min 30+ seconds but all the plastic did was get soft but did not burn. The key is not to overheat the pot but know how long it takes from the time you put on power until all the OA has vaporized.Then stop! For a hobby beekeeper the rod is fine but you best know your equipment. I think for a commercial operation, you have to go with the fan inserted OA vapor. Much more control. If I had a lot of hives and wanted to move quickly between hives, I would conduct a test to see just how long it takes a hot pot to vaporize the OA and use that time, not the cold test number. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine *********************************************** 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