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Date: | Sun, 1 Jul 2018 13:27:09 +0000 |
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A year ago I did experiments where I fogged water solutions of oxalic acid. I did a treatment once a week for several weeks and found mite counts totally unaffected by the treatment. Treated hives had counts by an alcohol wash just as high as the untreated controls.
I have also done some experiments testing what happens to ethanol when run thru a fogger. Fogger conditions are set up perfectly to cause the water gas reaction. Sure enough, I saw lots of evidence of some really ugly chemicals being produced from ethanol by passage thru the fogger. I sure as heck do not want those chemicals in my hives or showing up in my honey. I strongly suspect some of those ethanol decomposition products will be carcinogens. In fact it would be amazing if they are not. I saw enough without even adding any oxalic acid to the mix that I knew I would never use the process and never suggest anyone else should use it either.
I also looked at potential explosion issues due to putting ethanol and ethanol decomposition products into the hive. I found you could get ignition, but the pressure produced was so low all you got was a bit of a "Whoosh" sound that did not lift the lid nor blow out the candle used inside the hive as an ignition source. Three ignitions over the course of a few minutes was only enough heat to mildly warm the plastic foundation in the hive.
As there is a danger involved in honey contamination with unknown toxic organics produced by the water gas reaction and as no one has demonstrated that this application actually kills any mites I would suggest it is not very smart to use it. You are also breaking the law by introducing an unregistered formulation into your hive.
Dick
HL Mencken said: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. "
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