Price of Oxalic Acid crystals

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user 3509

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How much do those of you who use Oxalic acid dihydrate for sublimation pay for your crystals? I note that if you get them from a company that supplies the Varrox you pay just over £10 for 75g, where as you can buy 1kg for just about the same price from a well known auction site. Are these Oxalic acid dihydrate crystals exactly the same? If you buy them for specified bee use you seem to pay a lot more than if you buy for wood bleaching etc. Is it a case of the beekeeper being ripped off again?
 
I forgot to say that the eBay price of £10.25 per kilo included postage.
 
Are these Oxalic acid dihydrate crystals exactly the same? If you buy them for specified bee use you seem to pay a lot more than if you buy for wood bleaching etc. Is it a case of the beekeeper being ripped off again?

I think it's a matter of smaller quantities being priced according to the effort required to package it. It happens in all industries.

My understanding (from what I read online previously) is that wood bleaching oxalic acid is the same as the oxalic acid that beekeepers use, but you must read the ingredients list very carefully to ensure that there are no additives in the wood bleach.
 
I think it's a matter of smaller quantities being priced according to the effort required to package it.

And in this case a jolly good way to make around a £120 profit from every kg of oxalic acid sold.
 
Buy as an association. Go to AG Woodcare.
10Kg costs 4.30 per Kg
25Kg costs 2.72 per Kg

Divide it up between the members, and for absolute buttons you have almost a lifetimes supply for most beeks.

Kept dry in a poly bag it NEVER goes off.

Approx 0.7p per colony for the crystals at the larger quantity. An extravagant 1.2p for the smaller amount. Trickling? Then the sugar costs more at all of 2.5p.
 
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... where as you can buy 1kg for just about the same price from a well known auction site. Are these Oxalic acid dihydrate crystals exactly the same? If you buy them for specified bee use you seem to pay a lot more than if you buy for wood bleaching etc. Is it a case of the beekeeper being ripped off again?

I forgot to say that the eBay price of £10.25 per kilo included postage.

If you had clicked on the link I gave, you would have seen that the £7.50 + postage is the price being offered to beekeepers for "bee use".


The minimum purity grades required for beekeeping and "wood bleaching" would be rather different, and I would suggest that might be one reason for some cost differences.
However, it is not at all unusual for equipment suppliers to "price high" on consumables and spare parts - in whatever arena*. Generalising from one pricelist about beekeepers being "ripped off" isn't justified.

* And on eBay this morning, I happened on a vendor offering an ordinary kettle element for £50 - and offering it as a spare part for a branded kettle. "Why does eBay always try to rip off tea drinkers?"
 
The Oxalic acid dihydrate I have seen advertised on eBay is 99.6% pure which is what is used for bee use. I still feel that websites that supply small quantities for bee use tend to be charging inflated prices.
 
The Oxalic acid dihydrate I have seen advertised on eBay is 99.6% pure which is what is used for bee use. I still feel that websites that supply small quantities for bee use tend to be charging inflated prices.

Yes they do. It's also cheaper to buy heroin by the Kilo than by the 'wrap', but that is definitely not 99.6% pure, so I've heard.
:sorry: Couldn't resist it!
 
How much do those of you who use Oxalic acid dihydrate for sublimation pay for your crystals? I note that if you get them from a company that supplies the Varrox you pay just over £10 for 75g, where as you can buy 1kg for just about the same price from a well known auction site. Are these Oxalic acid dihydrate crystals exactly the same? If you buy them for specified bee use you seem to pay a lot more than if you buy for wood bleaching etc. Is it a case of the beekeeper being ripped off again?
Oxalic is used on an industrial scale and fairly easy to produce a clean product in quantity with the right industrial plant. So that's what is available anywhere.

Most of what's sold on eBay is for yachties. They use it a kg at a time in buckets for bleaching so it has to be cheap or they would use something else. Practically, if you buy small quantities it's mostly packaging and post. For instance anything over 25 mm deep is going to cost £3 or more for an ebay seller to post as a Royal Mail parcel once eBay and PayPal fees are added.

The University of Sussex researcher said their research into dribbling, sublimating and other treatments used only the one tub bought several years ago.
 
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10898254_10155054952960514_4790516286946536957_n.jpg
:icon_204-2: More weight than me to start with?

Don't ask me how I got that photo of Hivemaker, :)
 
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