For small batches, I find using *any* pump to be more trouble than
it is worth: I pour them by hand, both the thick and the thin. I
use a one liter plastic beaker with a sharp lip, never try to pour
from more than ca 300 ml at a time, and arrange the setup so that I
never have to pour across more than 4 vials in a tray (my trays hold
9 rows, so I pour the right-side 5 rows then turn the tray around to
pour the remaining 4). With a little practice one gets pretty good
at uniformity but it's never perfect, so I set the too-little ones
aside and use them for storing virgins and fertility tests. Takes
me 5 minutes per 100 vials: and no pump to clean up afterwards!

And I cook all my fly food over a gas hob -- pan just needs to be
large enough so that when the food boils up it doesn't boil over,
nothing special there.

Hope this helps, and feel free to contact me directly with any
further questions!

Cheers,
Adelaide Carpenter

hrundle@uottawa.ca wrote Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:14:47 -0700 (PDT)