How interesting.  Is your area with the high PH one of the potato growing
areas of Idaho (which is famous for growing potatoes almost as good as PEI
potatoes)?  Here we have an acid soil.  PH runs around 5 to 5.5 in soils
which have not been limed.  Potato growers try not to lime soils to PH
higher than about 6.2 to 6.5 because they are afraid of potato scab in the
more base soils.  So it is interesting to me to hear of the high PH of an
Idaho soil.

To give this a bee related twist, yesterday I saw bees drinking from a 80
litre plastic lobster tray which had a dilute lye solution.  They were
apparently unharmed (initially at any rate) and preferentially taking this
over water from a puddle immediately beside the tray.

I might add that I had posted to a thread a year or two ago about cleaning
plastic frames and foundation prior to rewaxing and the difficulties I had
doing this with a pressure washer, even one that used hot water that I
rented.  If the plastic foundation is scraped first and then soaked for a
few hours in a lye bath then pressure washing even with a wide angle jet of
cold water very quickly and easily removes all the cocoon material from the
bottom of the cells.  You do need a good full rainsuit and a full faceshield
for safety.

Stan

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