Oxalic acid from P****s

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
424
Reaction score
112
Location
Rhondda S. Wales
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
4 national
Sorry to bring up a much discussed subject. Checking the ready to use OA I bought from P****s I read that it was 6% solution in distilled water.
The contents are listed as; 6% Oxalic acid ,30% sugar, water up to 1 litre.

Would it be safe for me to use as it is. I'm confused as you guys say the stength should be around 3.5% .If my Query appears a bit stupid forgive me, I've just finished a course of radio therapy and my brain cells arn't working properly yet.

Cheers and Seasons Greetings to All

Bryan
 
there was discussion about this last year, maisemores was selling the 6% stuff, but the thornes is 3% (or is it 3.5%???? cant remember)

the conclusions last year was the weaker mixture does the job, some beeks experienced problems with the 6%
 
I think different suppilers measure the stuff in different ways I think that was mentioned on here last year and it works out the same. I may be wrong though.
 
Last edited:
The stuff Tho?nes sells is the same strength as the recipe most people use when they make it up for themselves. 4.5% oxalic acid dihydrate (in 1:1 sugar:water) which some have unhelpfully translated to 3.2% as, if the oxalic acid was anhydrous (all the water of crystallisation driven off by heating), that is what you would need. In scientific circles you'd just call it 4.5% of the oxalic acid dihydrate (weight/volume or w/v).

The usual recipe is:

1 kg sugar dissolved in 1 litre water then 75 g of oxalic acid added. The volume is a shade under 1600 ml. You can scale that down as much as you like.

Personally I wouldn't use 6%, but you could add sugar and water to make it closer to 4.5%.

If you have a litre of 6% in 30% syrup, I'd add about 250g sugar which will increase the volume slightly to maybe 1.1 litres. To get your 6% to 4.5% I'd then add maybe 150 ml water and you ought to end up fairly close, close enough to reduce the risk to your bees and still hit the mites.

Sorry to hear of your health troubles Bryan - hope that it all goes well for you.

Gavin
 
The stuff Tho?nes sells is the same strength as the recipe most people use when they make it up for themselves. 4.5% oxalic acid dihydrate (in 1:1 sugar:water) which some have unhelpfully translated to 3.2% as, if the oxalic acid was anhydrous (all the water of crystallisation driven off by heating), that is what you would need. In scientific circles you'd just call it 4.5% of the oxalic acid dihydrate (weight/volume or w/v).

The usual recipe is:

1 kg sugar dissolved in 1 litre water then 75 g of oxalic acid added. The volume is a shade under 1600 ml. You can scale that down as much as you like.

Personally I wouldn't use 6%, but you could add sugar and water to make it closer to 4.5%.

If you have a litre of 6% in 30% syrup, I'd add about 250g sugar which will increase the volume slightly to maybe 1.1 litres. To get your 6% to 4.5% I'd then add maybe 150 ml water and you ought to end up fairly close, close enough to reduce the risk to your bees and still hit the mites.

Sorry to hear of your health troubles Bryan - hope that it all goes well for you.

Gavin


Regards John
Apologies , must be the red wine :D
 
Last edited:
I may be wrong

As veg says, so why not ask the 'horse' and get the response staight from it's 'mouth'?

Well, OK, get it in writing (e-mail), so if there are any problems you have their recommendation and reasoning (hopefully).

As an ingredient list, it is rubbish - no mention if it is oxalic acid dihydrate (which it may well be as a solid). Could the instructions be to use the bottle into one litre of solution? So, without the instructions I wouldn' have a clue. Sorry.

Regards, RAB
 
No, I think that I might leave it at 75g! In 1.63 litres.

You don't really use 0.46% do you?!

:coolgleamA:

G.

Ah, you corrected yourself before I could tell you, well done.
 
Gavin,

In scientific circles 'ingredients' and contents are not the same, unless, as you state, 'as dihydrate' is specified.

Ingredients would need the proper description of the compound (dihydrate or anhydrous) and the dilution. Either w/w or w/v could be used.

Now when made up a scientist would not include the water of crystallisation (the dihydrate bit) as in solution it is irrelevant and possibly misleading.

So all down to scientific convention really, which is obviously not always understood by joe public, or even beekeepers. And possibly not by some suppliers, either!

Regards, RAB
 
Bryan

I went and got some from the same place the other day and they said then don't worry about the 6% on the label, and that, it's the way the calculations are done.

As Veg said above

But it's the stuff that they use on their Bee's
hope this helps
Tony
 
bb
Now when made up a scientist would not include the water of crystallisation (the dihydrate bit) as in solution it is irrelevant and possibly misleading.

OK, the correct way is to express it as a Molarity and that would take account of the water of crystallisation. If you decide to express it as concentration (which is convenient for the lay user) then just express the (w/v) of the compound, but be explicit about the compound.

For anyone confused by all this, 4.5% of oxalic acid dihydrate is equivalent to 3.2% anhydrous oxalic acid. That's the one to use, 6% is too strong and stronger sugar seems to help too.

G.
 
.
What is so difficult. No ne use 6% and 30% sugar.

Do this: 100 g water +100 g sugar + 7,5 g oxalic acid
 
Gavin,

When anyone says "Molarity, there are a lot who might think 'teeth' and even more that don't even know what it means, let alone calculate it from a compound formula (another item that is unlikely to have 'widespread understanding').

Then, of course, we have Molality, (which wouldn't make any difference to a single bee!) but I'm not even sure that it is used at all these days.

Regards, RAB
 
*sigh*

I'm not suggesting that people turn to molarity to record their oxalic or even sugar concentrations, but going down that route in the appropriate company gives you the measure of the compound of interest in molecular terms that mean something. I probably shouldn't have said 'the correct way' but some journals will force you into using molarity.

Wikipedia will tell you all about molarity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration

I was correct to use molarity, as molality refers to a mole weight of a compound in a *weight* of solvent. In this case the solvent is sugar syrup not water and so molarity and molality are not equivalent.

However none of this is relevant to the beekeeper who just wants to know if 4.% and 3.2% might be the same thing expressed differently, and that is indeed the case. 6% can't be 4.5% expressed differently.

Gavin
 
*sigh*

I'm not suggesting that people turn to molarity to record their oxalic or even sugar concentrations, but going down that route in the appropriate company gives you the measure of the compound of interest in molecular terms that mean something. I probably shouldn't have said 'the correct way' but some journals will force you into using molarity.

Wikipedia will tell you all about molarity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration

I was correct to use molarity, as molality refers to a mole weight of a compound in a *weight* of solvent. In this case the solvent is sugar syrup not water and so molarity and molality are not equivalent.

However none of this is relevant to the beekeeper who just wants to know if 4.% and 3.2% might be the same thing expressed differently, and that is indeed the case. 6% can't be 4.5% expressed differently.

Gavin

Is this about bees or EGOS?:confused:
Regards
TBRNoTB
 
I am still confused :banghead: - I have a bottle of the P****s stuff and not sure if it is ok to use or not. When I bought it, I was told could use straight from bottle so to speak. Reluctant to add further insult to my bees on top of my bad novice beekeeping antics so far this year.
 
Hi again

Recieved the following email from Pa***s this am
Quote"There is a lot of confusion when it comes to the Oxalic Acid strengths. When we started selling the ready-mixed solution, we approached our Regional Bee Inspector about it and after he took some away for tests, he advised that it is perfectly safe to use straight from the bottle. We've used it ourselves for the past 4 or 5 years and find we get good results from it."


Seems as if the stuff is safe to use!

Hope you all had a great Xmas Cheers

Bryan
 
BTL

Thanks for the update ,
That's what they said when I got mine and if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me, will be doing mine this week sometime,
:cheers2:
Tony
 

Latest posts

Back
Top