Acid vaporizing & plastic frames

[rober]

I have a few plastic frames that came with nucs. I was inspecting a hive yesterday & found 2 with partially melted bottom rails & it dawned on me that I had vaporized this hive. the rest  of the frames were wood. what are the odds of putting the vaporizer under the plastic not the wood frames? so if you use plastic frames you might want to do the drizzle or use a fogger. having tried the vaporizer & the drizzle i'm now leaning towards the drizzle. I have a fogger I might try that as well.

[Wandering Man]

The bottom of my wood frames will look a little charred after I use the OAV sometimes.  Also, I had to replace the hardware cloth on one of my Freeman bottom boards after my first use of the vaporizer.  I'd left the vaporizer turned on in the hive too long and I created a hole with the heat. 

 

[rober]

to protect the wire I've been putting a 10" square piece of sheet metal under the vaporizer. my vaporizer uses a diesel glow plug & they can get pretty hot.

[LazyBkpr]

Drizzle is really hard on the bees. It shortens their life dramatically, so don't drizzle your winter bees!  It basically comes down to harmful to bees or harmful to frames....
   Having said that... I have treated my hives that have the mann lake plastic frames in them and it didn't do anything more than discolor them slightly. I am quite against drizzle...  The bees must ingest the acid as they clean it from themselves and each other.

From Randy Olivers Site;

Does vaporization hurt the bees?

Radetzki didn’t note increased bee mortality after winter treatment. Heinz Kaemmerer of Heilyser Technology Ltd. says: “We treated several colonies for 3 months during winter, once a week with the vaporizer and all colonies survived.” “With brood, colonies can be treated with the right amount of OA 3 to 4 times, a week apart; there is no harm to bees, queen or brood.” Medhat Nasr confirms that vaporized oxalic is very gentle to the bees.
  //End quote.//

Again, a quote from Randy Olivers site;


Heinz Kaemmerer of Heilyser Technology says:

“You can treat your colonies with a liquid mixture of OA and sugar but be careful. The liquid acid shortens the life of the bees. There is no problem during summer because the bee’s life not longer than approximately 6 weeks. The problem starts with winter bees–do not treat your winter bees more than one time with liquid OA. When using liquid OA bees get wet and have to clean each other. The result is, the acid ends up in their stomach and during winter without a cleaning flight it shortens the life of the bees. Two treatments on winter bees might kill the colony. Liquid OA is a slow killer and bees will probably die after a few weeks or month instead reaching the next season.”
 //End quote.//


   Ahh, okay, I just realized your using a home made vaporizor...  That explains things.

[riverbee]

" Ahh, okay, I just realized your using a home made vaporizor...  That explains things. "

scott, i am sorta confused? please explain? and thanks for the info on drizzling bees! i had read olivers comments on this before. i am confused about your answer about using a home made vaporizor? this will melt plastic frames or char them?

[rober]

i'm using a homade vaporizer. it use a diesel engine glow plug for it's heat source. apparantly it gets hotter than than the store bought ones. i'm looking into a thermostat that will work on it.

[Lburou]

i'm using a homade vaporizer. it use a diesel engine glow plug for it's heat source. apparantly it gets hotter than than the store bought ones. i'm looking into a thermostat that will work on it.

Rober, can you post a picture of your device?  The Heilyser device is heated by a glow plug as well. 

How long does it take for your vaporizer to sublimate one gram of OA?  The Heilyser unit does it in about 90-150 seconds, depending on battery size and charge.

Are you sure the frames in question weren't harmed before you bought the NUCs?

[rober]

this was in a bottom deep of a hive not a nuc. the frames came with a nuc i'd bought over the years so the vaporizer was definitely the cause. I just hooked it up & timed it. just under 2 minutes to start misting & 8 minutes total. it reached a temperature of 450* F.what I've found is that the acid needs to be packed down or it does not make good enough contact to vaporize. here is the cooker, the power source, & the frames. the power source is a Schumacher 800 amp unit I bought at O Reilly's. it does not have enough for the job. shoots craps after 2 burns. I borrowed a friends JNC 600 & it works great. glow plugs suck a lot of juice. you need to click on the cooker photo to see the whole image.

[LazyBkpr]

Yikes! That really got hot! Thats kinda scary!
   It takes my Varrox about 2.5 minutes to vape a pan of OA. It leaves a mark, but it certainly doesnt melt the frame above it.

[rober]

do you know how hot the varrox gets?

[Lburou]

Rober,

Just for you, I got the battery out and took pictures as the varrox heated up.  I suspect your device has more mass at the cooker end than you need, and it robs the heat like a heat sink.

I stopped the test at 2:30.  I'm sure the hot end will get well over 700 F.

I used this battery.



Here are the temps through 2:30...Keep in mind it is not a static thing, the temps are going up and up with time. You will need to click on each picture to see the time and temp displayed.











I hope that gives you some useful data for comparison rober. 

[LazyBkpr]

Nicely done Lee!

[rober]

lee-thanks for that!
 i'll try milling some material off of the bottom & the edges. it is a heavy chunk of aluminum for sure. it started out as a 2" x 3"x 5/8" block.

[Lburou]

i'll try milling some material off of the bottom & the edges. it is a heavy chunk of aluminum for sure. it started out as a 2" x 3"x 5/8" block.

The other detail that may influence the heat transfer from the glow plug to the aluminium is the fit where the two contact each other.  Can you improve that fit? Perhaps a special high temp solder could improve heat transfer and still not harm the glow plug...?  Just brainstorming.

[apisbees]

i'll try milling some material off of the bottom & the edges. it is a heavy chunk of aluminum for sure. it started out as a 2" x 3"x 5/8" block.

with the bloke being 5/8 thick having a 3/4" rim on your bottom board only leaves 1/8" of space above the vaporizer. That is close to touching the frame bottoms.

[rober]

I trimmed 3/16" from the side opposite the glow plug & near 1/4" from the tail end & ground 1/8" from the bottom. that's about as far as I can go without getting into the pan area, glow plug, handle, & ground wire holes. I did a test & it's hot enough to start vaporizing in 70 seconds & takes just over 3 minutes to cook all the acid. so it's faster now which should help. I'm going back to the machine shop & start over. since the varrox reaches 700* & mine gets to around 450* clearance has to be the main issue & the only way to get thinner is to start over. I found this unit for sale & might try cloning it? I wonder what the varrox uses to produce heat? electrically speaking glow plugs are running by being shorted out. maybe varrox does too.



chinese knockoff

[LazyBkpr]

I believe on a Varrox it is an element, or COIL around the pan itself that gets hot rather than a glow plug.