>Has anyone tried sterilizing old combs and boxes with ozone? You can pick
up an ozone purifier for hot tubs or aquariums on eBay for $100. If you
pumped the ozone into an old chest freezer, you could gas 8 or 10 boxes at
once.

>Using O3 on a small scale could be practical, though, especially since the
generator may be cheap to buy and there are no consumables. 

>Rosalind James at the Ogden Bee Lab has been testing ozone  fumigations.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ozone is frequently used in cool stores dealing with fruit, in my case
kiwifruit. Purefresh is one US proprietary system, Smartfresh I think
another. It is used to deplete ethylene, and as a 'cleanser' killing exposed
fungi and bacteria. Kiwifruit in store is particularly susceptible to
ethylene and botrytis rots.

A search for 'cool storage ozone' will start you off and give some idea of
the concentrations used etc. I have not had the chance to throw some bee
boxes in, mostly because in our case (but not elsewhere) we use it in
controlled atmosphere rooms sealed for several months. It is quite routine
and I haven't the slightest doubt that it would work. Fruit being a seasonal
business you may be able to arrange an out of season 'trial' with a local
store when the stores are not being used. Clearly, it will only work on
exposed surfaces, spores and so on buried in wax will be unaffected.

Very low concentrations are used and venting the rooms is not a problem,
safer actually than venting a CA room in some respects. Yes if you want to
clear it quickly a big fan is used. I haven't really thought about it but
the rooms are something like 12,000cubic metres, and safe in less than eight
hours.

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