Hello Folks,

Jim Fisher wrote:

Another bonus is that the fact that the wax is not so old means that
it is much less costly to process into an acceptable-looking bar of wax.

                jim (Who rotates comb on a 5-year cycle,
                 and changes his oil every 3,000 miles
                 under the same rationale.)

Jim: First things first; use synthetic oil. :-)  (Oops, shouldn't have opened up that can of worms.)

Actually I am writing about contaminated wax. Jim mentions that five year wax can still be rendered down and sold.  In his case I somewhat agree because he is not using Check-Mite.   A number of years ago I made a decision, right or wrong, to dispose of wax from the brood chamber.  I did this back when Apistan was hitting the market.  I just felt that the brood chamber was becoming a toxic waste dump and the few pounds of wax that could be salvaged was not worth the risk. (I mentioned this idea a few times to the list.) I realize that it is still possible to get contamination in capping wax, but that is more related to when the treatment is applied (Spring vs. Fall) and the concentration would be much less.  I know others will argue that this is not necessary, however I then submit the reported presence of trace amounts of coumophos in new foundation. If much of the contaminated wax was destroyed rather than recycled, I don't think this would be happening.  Just my thoughts.

I would like to bring up a related point for discussion.  I am not advocating misuse, just questioning some logic.  After all this list is suppose to be a place for discussion.

A few years ago while doing test on Apistan resistance, Dewey Caron reported that resistant colonies that were then treated with Check-Mite had the greatest level of mite kill in the first 2-3 days of application.  I realize that the idea of treatment length is to get at mites that are still in brood cells when they emerge.  But we all know that nothing is 100% and there will always be a few survivor mites.  My thought is if the colony is not highly infested, but above levels where treatment should occur, why not use the strip for a shorter period of time killing most of the mites and knowing that there will still be some infestation, but reduced?  This could be timed with a period of minimal brood production. This may work better with bees that do not constantly raise brood (sans Italian.). If you limit the amount of time the strips are in the colony, surely the contamination levels will be reduce.  The exposure to the queen will also be less.  I am not advocating running out and doing this, I would just like to hear what others think.

I keep some of my bees at the Rodale Institute.  (These are the "Organic Folks".)  Through their research they have shown that a pesticide applied to an orchard at a critical point in time is just as effective as spraying once every 2 weeks whether they need it or not.


   Ron

Ron Bogansky
Kutztown, (eastern) PA, USA



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