On Dec 31, 2019, at 13:22, Deborah Hewitt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> What are thoughts on BetterBee's BetterComb?

My 0.002: Although the vendor claims to be testing it for three years, our hives have much longer memories, and something that turns out to be sub-optimal may have long-term consequences.

It may be worthwhile to experiment with BetterComb in "test hives" for beekeepers who are curious and have the resources for experimentation. If I were to do so, I would maintain as much isolation from production hive components as possible. I use a "colored thumbtack" code system for frames that should be handled differently than others. For example, for frames that were in a hive that had to be treated with Apivar, I use a red tack on each frame so that I know to: never extract honey from those frames for human consumption; never reuse the frames in other hives; never reuse the wax taken from those frames; etc.  So, for testing with BetterComb, I would mark (at inception) every single frame in any hive that had BetterComb in it.

Here is a related question: Without human intervention ... can significant amounts of wax migrate between colonies? I have seen that when I leave honey frames out for bees to rob out, or when hives get robbed out, that the robbers will take wax from the combs, as well as the honey and sometimes the "bee bread" in those frames. If that is a regular occurrence, then preventing contamination of the general wax supply with BetterComb is going to be much harder. Does anybody have pointers to scientific references that relates to wax migration tracking among hives?

Rob Jenson
Bethesda, Maryland
https://ferthalangur.spotch.com/beekeeping/



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