"If you look at the chemistry, synthetic wax and plastic are in the same ball park, byproducts of oil refining:"

Also the paint you use on your house, oxalic acid and formic acid, the Titebond glue I use on boxes and frames, the heat shinkable seals I use on my honey jars, the glue on the labels I use on my honey jars and the propane I use to heat my house are all byproducts of oil refining.  In fact the only anti mite product we have that is not a by product of oil refining is thymol.  Thymol is isolated from coal tar which is truly obnoxiously toxic stuff compared to crude oil.

I am not sure what the rant about polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) has to do with foundation or bee keeping.  Plastic foundation is not made from either based on the foundations I have tested.  But then I have not tested every product on the market so some might be made from PE.  I doubt very much any are made from PP and am sure none are made from PVC.  If anyone knows of any made from low density PE let me know.  I would switch as the physical properties of the plastic foundation I have used are marginal compared to what is possible at little increase in cost.  High density PE would be suspect due to its poor chemical stress cracking properties unless it had a lot of in hive testing behind it.

Based on what Better Bee has disclosed about their synthetic foundation it sounds to me like a large part of the ingredients are natural products.  There is an issue there thou.  Those fats, which they show as major ingredients, may be derived form hogs or cattle to get the melting points high enough to be suitable in the application.  I could be wrong and perhaps they are being careful to avoid all animal fats.  But, if they do include animal fats there are religious issues that will damage the honey market.  If they are only using vegy fats are they using hydrogenated products to get the melting points up?  If so does that mean a lot of trans fats?  Unlike natural bees wax the synthetic stuff sounds to me like it is in large part digestible.

Dick

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