💥Making Randy Oliver's Oxalic Acid Sponges!!

RECIPE at the END of the video!

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#Beekeeping #Beekeeper #Honeybee

[kamonreynolds]

--- Randy Oliver's Website Scientificbeekeeping.com

[DavidWilliams-wrwb]

There’s a few fellas in my local bee group that started doing this over a year ago exclusively, they are having great success and after a year two fellas have a zero mite count, very healthy bees with great brood patterns and overall very healthy brood, they have not used any other type of varroa treatment, I know every area is different as far as effectiveness and efficacy of the treatment, but for this to work well in my area has me very happy with this form of treatment, thanks to you and Randy Oliver for all you guys do and the potential sacrifice you make with some of your bees so we can learn and be better prepared to take the best care of our bees, I have some test hives I’m going try this on throughout the summer and see how it does for me, as of now I’m naturally mite free in the packages I installed last month, I guess I got lucky, 8 brood boxes with zero mites and zero beetles, hopefully I get lucky too this year!!!😊

[lifelovelettuce]

A new (3rd season) backyard beekeeper here in New Zealand. I've been using three cardboard strips per brood box with OA this season. I hang them over each frame. I'm thrilled with how healthy the bees are and how easy (and economical) it is to make and use OA strips. I hope you're all able to make your own pretty soon. Love your videos and Laurel's contributions are priceless. Thank you for going into such depth and teaching me so much about the bees. The learning curve is enormous! 🥰🐝

[subsy]

I started using paper straws instead of sponges, I really like them. They are easy to throw on top, bees get all over them and they are SUPER cheap in bulk. Basically do the exact same thing as the sponge method just throw them over the paper straws and I let my soak 24 hours as well then put them on. Had some of my best results for varroa after using apivar, OA vapor, and OA extended release as a combination. It was by far the best results I've ever seen, so I'm a believer at this point, but it's not a full proof plan like you said Kamon, it's a help overall.

[yasminnilima]

Swedish wetex are useful! I use them for making my tymol sponges. 1 wetex is devided into 9 pices in that case. I am outside doing all those cooking sponges things as a safety. I do not like to have the steam inside. It can become harmful amounts. Ziplockers are good for this. Can one freeze the oxalic sponges like I do with the tymol sponges? Then one can make these ahead when one have time. Take them out of the freezer when you 'll use them. I use a nametaged grilltong (used only for those type of sponges) for putting the sponges in the hive. That way I do not smear the content everywhere. I would use safteyglases while cooking.
Thank you for sharing!

[CNBarnes]

Can you cut/paste this into the description of the video:

1/2 gallon water w/ 6 tablespoons Baking Soda for "neutralizing agent" (safety factor)

Use a kitchen scale set to grams
Into large cooking pot put 500 grams of Glycerin
Add 500 grams of Oxalic Acid and heat on low to medium while stirring gently. Use a cooking thermometer to make sure the temperature stays between 120 to 160 degrees.
When mixture is clear, pour over shop towel strips in medium sized plastic tub. Use cooking tongs to make sure every strip is well soaked.

Store in zip-lock bags. Try to use with in 1 month.

[conradriffle]

Thank you Karmon=watching your videos often. I fog my bees here in Ohio on warm days in January and again in Febuary, also start feeding soy bean flower with powered egg and powered sugar mid Febuary plus 1 to 1 sugar water with lemon and dash of Honey bee healthy in it. Last June 7 th my bee inspector in Summit County inspected 6 hives and found zero mites in my hives. The bees could be helping me with the mites and black hive beatles
because most all of them came from the wild years ago. I invented my own Propane Copper fogger 2 years ago and its very fast=so I wait till it hits 50 F or above and kill those mites while nearly no babies are in the hives. Then I'm free of mites while they are making loads of honey from our Lenden 11 trees. Blessings to you and yours.

[KirballsKeys]

One piece of advice, weigh the glycerin in the pot, one less step and less glycerin that may not make it if not scraped properly. I'd weigh everything right into the pot personally.

[robertcampbell]

Hi Kamon love your videos and your giggle lady partner does a fantastic video job. I'm in Canada..eastern snow belt are so our hives are buried until late April. Last fall I experimented with the OAE method from Randy Oliver on 7 double deep 10 frame hives. (7 for good luck...lol!) I applied the pads on Aug 7 and have left them on all winter. So far all hives are still alive and seem to be doing well. I believe Randy's method was for 70 days. I wanted to see what kind of results I'd get over winter. Up until mid November I checked the mite drop with sticky boards. The drop every week from Aug was steady with declining numbers. After Nov 16 the snow became too deep to check but I will start again beginning of April. I have no idea if there is any efficacy at this point or when it might become zero but it will be interesting to see the results.
My question to you is when you are dissolving the OA in the glycerin over the stove aren't you concerned breathing the vapours. I wear a mask same as if I was doing an OAV. Thanks!

[BlaineNay]

I am the county bee inspector for two counties in southern Utah. Some of the beekeepers in my area are using Randy's extended-release oxalic acid shop towels and sponges. All of these beekeepers have had excessive mite counts when I do inspections, although the count is noticeably lower than "treatment-free" apiaries in my counties. My conclusion is that Randy's work has created a very useful tool, but it isn't perfect. I does seem to keep mite counts from getting our of control which makes other treatments more effective. I tell my Randy Oliver disciples that they must continue to do monthly mite counts and to treat with a different product when the mite count exceeds 2-3%. As with the "Flow Hive", oxalic-acid sponges and shop towels are NOT an excuse to be lazy.

[KambizNazir]

So a little update from what I gathered from Randy Oliver videos. The ratio of OA:gly is best 1:1. The amount of OA around 40-50 grams had the best results. Towels had 76% kill rate (not too great) but sponges were exceptionally good 92-96% at 2 months kill rate. The surface area of sponge pads mattered more than the orientation of the pads placed (on top of bars vs in btw frames). Do not use Randy’s technique in the heat of the summer or you will fry the colony. Fry rate in summer with OA was not as bad as Apivar 2 pads) but there was 11% queen loss when OA extended release was used with Temperatures of 95F and above.

[jimandjeansbackyardabundan]

Thank you for condensing Randy’s research into a keeper-friendly understanding. I began using the oxalis dribble method this winter and have been pleased with the results.

[honigtrailapiary]

I put Randy's OA treatment on 4 of my colonies, placed the treated sponges on the colonies last Mid-Nov. used Randy's Dawn Dish Soap Mite wash method just prior to putting the treated sponges on the colonies. (The treated colonies had mite loads of 1-2 mites in the samples). The sponges have been on the colonies since then and will take them off and do another mite load test as soon as the temps warm up (a low of 16F this morning here in Ariz.) seeing a good increase of activity in the colonies after the temps reach about 55d+ on sunny days. Will be interested to see the mite load results in early spring.

[tweake]

hi from NZ. i found you really need to get the maximum OA mix in the sponges that you can. the wettex i tried, hold around 200g of OA. if you try to only half fill them you can end up with very different amounts in each pad. by filling them to the max they will hold hold the same amount.
also whats very important is the drying procedure (not shown in the video) they must be dry before using. i think randy uses a thinner pad. wettex do make a thinner version which might be more suitable.
use a double boiler and stir constantly, otherwise you can over heat the bottom and cause the mixture to form formic acid which ends up killing the bees.
hope that helps.

[zgzgchen]

bees didn't even touch all of these oxalic sponges!! they put sticky resin gum around sponges

[Peter_Gunn]

I bet Laurel loves you cooking acid on her stove 🤣 😂 . Thanks for sharing

[forbeessake]

Best how to on making the OAE Sponges I have found! Keep up the good work

[RicardoSilva-rleo]

Hello, thank you so much for these years of great bee sharing. Two questions: How many weeks should the sponges stay in the hives? And how many degrees can vegetable glycerin go from 0 to 100?

[kipglass]

Used these for over 2 years now and my bees haven't looked this good in over 25 years. The key is leave them on for months. Put them on early and leave all year. My cell builders that I add frames of emerging brood every week are enormous. Mite counts in August when I break these down and split are zeros and ones. They work. I am in SW Missouri so humidity is high in summer. I do 1:1 by weight.

[donalddickerson]

Great information. I have been reading about these. Hope we have approval soon. Thank God for sharing this.