Peter, I too worried about getting AFB via bought wax as of course the wax is sourced from all over and is probably less than pristine, both in terms of disease and chemicals...I asked the supplier how they render the wax and they use a high heat steam process which he felt would kill any AFB spores.

Has anyone actually looked into that issue? I would think there are two issues at play: do spores survive the heat of rendering and can bees be infected by spores embedded (rather than just on the surface of) wax?

FWIW in four years of using bought wax to augment my meager supply of my own clean wax (smaller than ever now that I have gone to an uncapper that does not cut the cappings off), I have never seen disease I thought was vectored by the wax I put on the frames. I put waxed frames into colonies all through the season and do not see disease issues cropping up at random times.

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