The Do-It-Yourself Oxalic Acid Strip Guide — Digital Guide

Oxalic acid has one great weakness: it can't touch a mite sealed under a capping. In a Texas colony rearing brood nine months of the year, a one-shot vapor or dribble reaches only a small slice of the mite population.

Extended-release strips solve the timing problem instead. This is how we cut, mix, soak, cure, and hang them on our own hives — the treatment that keeps working through a full brood cycle, in the heat that shuts every other option down.

What's inside — 6 pages

• Why slow release beats a one-shot dose, and why glycerin is the actual trick
• Safety gear, the neutralizer rule, and a full shopping list before the bag is opened
• The recipe in grams: 500 g oxalic acid dihydrate, 500 mL glycerin, 250 mL water, 50 strips
• Cutting plain 30-point chipboard evenly, and heating without ever passing 160°F
• Soaking, draining, and curing a full day — plus what cured strips should look like
• Dosing, placement in the cluster, the mid-treatment check, and when to pull them
• Quick-reference batch numbers, don'ts, and red flags

Photographed step by step in our own bee shed. The recipe and measurements are Randy Oliver's, published at ScientificBeekeeping.com — full credit to him and his research. The build, the photos, and the Texas notes are ours.

Prepared by Ricky Tharp — Apprentice Beekeeper, Texas Master Beekeeper Program (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension) and Secretary, Kaufman Area Beekeepers Association.

Instant PDF download. Every yard is different and the rules are set by your state — treat this as a starting point, keep good notes, and verify with your own mite counts.