Sublimox Review Apibioxal Sublimation

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today we're talking oxalic sublimation again, and this time we're looking specifically at the Sublimox. So a few things to get out of the way first in terms of health and safety. Whenever you're using any oxalic sublimation product, please, please, please make sure you use the correct PPE. You need to make sure that you protect your eyes, you protect your hands, you've got no exposed skin, and most importantly, you protect your lungs. You don't want to be inhaling any of these vapours whatsoever. So I recommend a full mask like this, so it kind of completely contains your eyes. You're not breathing in any vapours. You get a good seal all the way around. You use an organic vapour filter. That's really, really important. So you have a very fine filter and it can effectively filter out the organic vapour that's in the air. That's what's going to get into your lungs and cause real damage. And then you need just a good pair of gloves as well. Now I normally use longer style gauntlets, but I've just got these welding gloves with me today, so make sure you use gloves with them. Now the other thing to say is that make sure you're using an approved oxalic product. That is to say, don't just use your normal oxalic crystals that you might use for kind of other purposes around the apiary. You need to make sure you're using the correct product. And for oxalic sublimation, the licensed product in the UK is ApiBioxal. So that's what we're using today. Make sure that's what you use on your hives. So talking a little bit more about the Sublimox then, I started off using a Varox. So a Varox is kind of like a wand-style sublimation pan, and you need to put the oxalic crystals in it, and then you have that underneath your hive, and the kind of vapours raise up like that. I really, really didn't like the Varroa-X. It was expensive, it kind of had all of the negatives that come with the Sublimox, and I didn't feel that I was getting kind of like an effective treatment from it. So like I say, this is all kind of designed around my inspection regime, my treatment regime. What doesn't work for me may well work for other people, so don't kind of rule it out just on the fact that I say I don't like the Varroa-X. Not that you do that anyway, but the reason I didn't like the Varroa-X is because I felt it took me too long per hive. So if I just had 1 or 2 hives, the Varrox is perfectly acceptable to use. But I'd probably, now that the GasVap's come out, I'd probably even favour the GasVap over the Varrox, even though I'm not entirely sold on the GasVap. So I upgraded from the Varrox to the Sublimox, and the reason for that was, is I was just trying to speed things up. It was taking me maybe 3 or 4 minutes per hive with the Varrox because I had to keep on cooling down the pan. Now the Sublimox, obviously you get the pan up to temperature and then you kind of invert it, plug the nozzle in, and away you go. So you can sublimate a colony in 30 seconds very, very easily with the Sublimox, which is what I prefer to use now, and that's the basis of this review. So in this video, I'm just going to show you quickly how it works, why I like it, how it's built, talk to you a little bit about the build quality, and then give you my recommendations for kind of oxalic sublimation. So let's take a look at it. That is the Sublimox there. It's a very, very basic construction, nowhere near as basic as the Varox or the Gasvap, but it is essentially a unit that provides heat to a pan, and then the pan has a copper tube coming off it, and then when you put the sealing cap on the top, it fires oxalic sublimate out of the tube. So it's effectively a hot sealed container that fires out whatever's in there at pressure. What's good about the Sublimox though is that you invert it, so you have these caps that have kind of like a rubber seal on it, like an O-ring. You put your oxalic acid crystals, or apibioxal, which is the legal name for it, into this pan here, and then you put that that way round into your preheated Sublimox. And then you go over to your hive, you have a little hole in the hive, either in the brood box, or I've adapted all of my floors to have a hole in them, and then you invert it. All of the oxalic crystals fall down into the pan and it fires out a stream of oxalic crystal sublimates. That oxalic crystal sublimate goes into your hive. You want to keep the hive as sealed as you possibly can, and then that attacks the varroa mite. So That will get all of the phoretic mites off, but what it won't do is it won't take any of the mites that are capped underneath the brood. So hence why you hear people talking about you need to do this at the right time of year. If you do it around Christmas time, depending on where you are in the UK or where you are in the world, one shot should get all of the phoretic mites, but you'd have to be very, very lucky to kind of get it exactly where there's no brood in there. So What's best is to do 3 shots over 15 days. So 1 shot, wait 5 days, another shot, wait 5 days, another shot, wait 5 days. So you have 3 shots over 15 days, and then that aligned with the brood cycle of the bees should get the majority of the mites. You're never going to get it down to nothing, but you'll get it down to a really kind of like manageable level. So that is what the aim of it is. So what do I like about the Sublimox? Now, what I like about it is kind of what a lot of other bee Beekeepers don't like about it. So people's main gripe with the Sublimox is the fact that you have to have a generator or a battery with an inverter to make it work. And that's right, and it is a little bit cumbersome. You have to carry that product around with you, so you have to carry the generator around with you, the Sublimox, and then maybe an extension lead. And it is a little bit cumbersome, but I find if I'm going to an apiary and there's maybe 20 hives there, it's no big deal kind of just putting the generator in the middle. And I'll just go around. I'll probably have to move the generator once or twice throughout that period just so I can reach all of the hives, and it's really no big deal at all. What that does give you though is it gives you real kind of certainty that your device is going to work. Now the issue that I've had with the gas vat is that I have the propane torches failing. It's very, very rare that I've— well, I've never had a generator fail on me while I've been out kind of in the field doing this. So that's what I like about it. Okay, it means that I have to carry a generator around with me, but it means that I'm almost certain to be able to go out and actually complete the activities in the field that I've been meaning to go and do. Another thing that I like about the Sublimox is the fact that it's very easy to clean. So all I do is I carry a little bottle of water around with me, and maybe kind of after 5 or 6 goes, I'll just get a capful of water, I'll put that into the canister here, put the lid on, and it will just fire it out as a steam. And then that really, really cleans all of the inside, but more importantly, it cleans that copper tube. because it's only got about a 5mm internal bore on it. So you need to be really, really careful with that, that you keep that clean, otherwise it blocks and then that pops off. And it's not going to explode or anything, but it's just, it makes it kind of a bit frustrating. And it's a very easy tip to kind of keep on top of it. Cap full of water every 5 goes and you keep that nice and clean. So that's it really. Like, it's a very, very simple design. You get 2 of these, you get 2 of these caps with the Sublimox as it comes. You can buy replacement O-rings very, very easily. Kind of, I don't buy them from whoever makes the stuff, the Sublimox. I just buy the correct size online and they work, and you get, you'll get a few hundred goes on each O-ring, absolutely no problem, and they're only cheap. So that's really the only replaceable bit you need. These caps, they last forever. I'm pretty sure they last forever. They've certainly lasted me about 3 years, and I can't see how they're ever going to deteriorate to the point where they don't work. It's the seals and the O-rings that kind of wear out on them. Can't really vouch for the circuitry too much because I've only had it for about 3 years. It's never failed on me. The circuitry seems pretty solid, so I'm assuming that it's going to work for a long time yet. But it's kind of a good idea just to kind of give it a clean at the end of every season and just kind of try and stop that corrosion as much as you can. So I'll stick my PPE on. I'll do a little bit of a demo. I won't be able to talk while I do the demo because it's very difficult to hear through the mask. But you know what I mean, what you're looking out for when I'm doing this is the fact that when I invert the Sublimox, you see that really, really strong stream of oxalic sublimate coming out. And I mean, the fact that it comes out at that real high pressure means that it fills the void within the hive very effectively, and then you get a really kind of good treatment on the bees. So I'll put the PPE on and I'll show you how it works. So that's it. You can see it's a very, very kind of simple process. You have to get it warm, so you turn the generator on and you maybe leave it for 10 minutes. If I'm ever going and treating, I mean, I'll get the generator out first, I'll get it warm, and I'll just kind of suit up and get ready and do other stuff while that generator and the pan's getting warm, and then that's it. You don't need to leave it to heat up again. It remains at that constant temperature the whole way through. Just a little bit about the way that I actually treat the bees. So like I say, I've modded all of my floors, so So that I can put a tray in underneath to block out the OMF floor. And then I put a hole in the side that's the perfect size for the Sublimox nozzle. And then all I do is I'll just put it in and fire it for kind of 10, 15, 20 seconds, make sure that the whole chamber has emptied into the hive. And then I'll leave that tray in for maybe kind of 10, 15 minutes. And then that's my treatment. It's a really, really quick, easy, and effective way to treat the bees. One thing to note about temperatures when treating as well is you don't actually want it to be as cold as you possibly can get it. If you do it when it's, say, -5 degrees, the bees are so tightly clustered the oxalic sublimate might not get into all of the nooks and crannies. So what you're looking for is you're looking for a nice loose cluster. You don't want to do it on an active hive because you'll have bees flying in, flying out. You definitely don't want to do it throughout the season. I mean, you don't want to contaminate any of your honey supers with product. It says that specifically on the label, on the ApiBioxyl label. Don't use it when you've got honey supers on. So you're looking for that kind of happy medium. You want the bees clustered, but you want it as a nice loose cluster. So maybe like 8, 9 degrees is a really, really good time to do it. Give them a blast kind of around Christmas, New Year. That's a kind of generic time to do it, but you can't really tell, do you mean, unless you're going to go into the hive and look and check and see that there's no eggs in there. You're never going to be 100% sure that there's no brood, and I don't recommend going in and doing that. So what I would recommend is maybe giving them 2 or 3 goes around Christmas and New Year, and then you'll be really, really sure that you've kind of got a good blast and you've got that mite drop down as low as it possibly can go going into the season. I also use this as an autumn treatment as well. As an autumn treatment, it's definitely 3 shots over 15 days, so 5-5-5. And then that'll get the mite drop down to a really, really low level. You'd never get them down with 1, not even 2 shots, and sometimes if you're actually monitoring the mite drop, you might want to go kind of 4 or 5 shots to get those colonies down to an acceptable level kind of going into winter. But that's entirely up to you and how you monitor and how low you want that mite drop to go. So that's it for today's video, just a quick one to kind of show you the pros and cons of using the Sublimox, why I use it, and why I'm very, very happy with it. It's definitely my tool of choice for oxalic sublimation. Um, please hit the subscribe button in the bottom right-hand corner. Please hit the bell, you'll get notified every time we upload a new video. We're getting really, really close to the upcoming bee season now, so we're going to have plenty of inspection videos. Getting into June, July time, we'll be able to show you how we take off the honey, how we extract that honey, how we put it into jars. We'll talk about labeling, we'll talk about loads of stuff. So there's plenty more to come, so please stay tuned and I'll see you next time.