> "New Zealand apiarists have used hot wax dipping..."
> Question: Does anyone do this for contaminated equipment?
West Virginia does something better.
But lots of people have done wax-dipping using mixes of paraffin and rosin,
but this brings up the issue of paraffin (a petroleum-based product) in a
beehive at all. Not a very enlightened approach for 21st century beekeeping.
Using real beeswax rather than paraffin would be expensive, but several
people have boasted about doing this on the interwebnets, without explaining
the financial wisdom of paying for enough beeswax to submerge bee boxes and
frames.
One might use a shallower "deep fat fryer" basin, and dip individual frames,
and each side of a bee box to utilize less wax, but this would be painfully
slow, and the temperatures would thrash up and down, as the volume of the
paraffin or wax would be less than the volume of the wood, and it would take
a while for the paraffin to cycle back up to temperature to heat up the wood
properly (typically 250 F to 330 F).
And temperature is the big problem here - with lower temps, you won't kill
the AFB spores, so you can't just melt the wax, as that's only about 140-160
F, which won't kill spores. You need to get it hotter, but well below
flash point, about 400 F. So, you need a really accurate thermometer, and a
way to mount it so that it stays in the molten wax without needing your hand
having to hold it there, as the minimum temperature for a 99% spore kill
would be 250 F (120 C).
But at too high a temperature, the wax starts to smoke, and the wife calls
to you from the garden, asking about "something burning", the smoke alarm
goes off, the dogs start barking and one of them runs in and bangs into the
apparatus, sending the wax all over the workbench, giving you the experience
of "a waxing" not available at the Elizabeth Arden Red Door spas, possibly
igniting a fire of wax and wood.
If you think I am exaggerating or joking here, note the suicidal approach to
heating wax taken by one of the "no-treatment" cult leaders:
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/DippingTank3.jpg
Yep, that’s a GAS STOVE, heating more than 40 liters of wax, as the metal
container is large enough to submerge a langstroth deep hive body. I hope
that this was another of his staged photos, and he was not really using that
stove. If that photo didn't not make shivers go down your spine, you've
never seen a hospital burn unit.
Here's another graphic warning, where wax is heated in a test tube, and then
the test tube is then slid into water, which cools the test tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paMF4ildjKs
But there's a better way - West Virginia built a trailer-mounted autoclave
in 1991. Nice clean steam, under a nice controlled pressure with multiple
relief valves and safety features. Runs off propane too, so it is cheap to
use. I think that several other states have copied this. WV got lots of
federal money to fund things, even enough to distribute free Apistan strips
to all beekeepers, as Senator Robert Byrd was very good about bringing home
the bacon.
Now steam pressure can seem scary, but there's lots of competent people who
know and maintain boilers, and there's an entire "steamfitting" industry out
there to sell heavy-duty well-proven components to any group that wants to
build one of these.
Here's a good read on wax-dipping, which warns that wax-dipping really
should be done at 170 C (338 F):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2672.2001.01376.x/pdf
"Disinfection of wooden structures contaminated with Paenibacillus larvae
subsp. larvae spores"
W. Dobbelaere, et al
Journal of Applied Microbiology, 2001
"After dipping the wooden sticks in paraffin at a temperature of 120°C, >
99.99% of the spores were killed at the surface and 99.98% internally. At
145°C or more, complete decontamination at the surface was achieved. At
170°C there was a complete decontamination at both levels."
"...sodium hypochlorite was only 100% effective at very high
concentrations".
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2672.2001.01376.x/pdf
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