Acetic acid 1L

01 · HOW IT IS APPLIED

200 cc per cubic metre, and seven days

Stack the supers — six or seven to a stack — in a closed room, soak some cloths in the acid and spread them around the space so it evaporates. The reference is 200 cc per cubic metre of room. The vapour does the work for seven days; afterwards the equipment is aired for at least 48 hours before it goes back to the field. Airing is enough: the combs do not need washing.

02 · ON WHAT MATERIAL

Empty combs, never with honey

It is for drawn, empty combs and for supers that are going into store for months — the equipment you want to put away clean and take out clean in spring. What the material must not carry is honey: acetic acid vapour passes into honey and spoils it, so supers with harvest left on them have to be extracted and drained first. And metal parts suffer: wire, nails and fittings feel the acid, so take out of the room whatever you can.

03 · THE FORMAT

At 80%, already made up

It comes ready to use: the usual working concentration in beekeeping is 80%, and this bottle already carries it, so there is nothing to dilute and no mixing to calculate. One litre covers a small room completely — at 200 cc per cubic metre it does about five cubic metres.

04 · SAFETY

Caustic, and seriously so

Acetic acid at this concentration is caustic: it burns skin, damages eyes and its vapours irritate the airways. Handle it with gloves, goggles and a mask, in a room that can be closed and then aired properly, with the door marked while the treatment lasts. Nobody goes into the room during the days of exposure, and it is never mixed with other products.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is not a treatment for bees: it never goes into syrup or into populated hives. It disinfects empty equipment with no honey on it. Caustic product: gloves, goggles and mask.