"But with concerns about the effects of its residues in wax on queens raised next season"


Why bother to guess when we have perfectly good publicly available data on the residue of active ingredient in both honey and wax as a function of time after treatment?  I suggest anyone who is concerned should read this article:

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892290/document

The authors showed very clearly that amatraz, the active ingredient in apivar, shows zero residue in honey or wax at detection levels far below the limits needed to show those residues are far below the legally allowed levels in those products.  Even honey samples purposely fortified with amatraz were shown to be free of the contaminant within three days due to its very rapid hydrolysis in any acid environment.  It is even less stable in wax.

In the apivar strips the active ingredient is protected from hydrolysis.  The plastic is hydrophobic, as most plastics are, and is not acidic thus the active ingredient should be expected to be stable for long periods.  I realize my experience is anecdotal, as is Randy's on his truck floor experiment.  I have used strips from a package that had been opened for three years and found the product to work well.  I kept unused strips wrapped in the original foil container folded tightly and stored in a gallon zip lock bag stored at room temp.

I think we should also remember this ingredient does not kill mites.  Rather, it paralyzes them causing them to fall off the bee and then starving to death on the hive floor when the strips are used according to directions.

There are also publicly available reports on severe over dosing effects on bee mortality, brood damage and queen damage.  No damage was observed.

All of these studies were done using apivar strips.  We all know many commercial operations illegally use taktic  which is a product no longer registered for mite control on bees in the US.  The dose is poorly controlled compared to apivar and there is no long term slow release.  Still it seems even in such an abusive and uncontrolled application there is no significant damage to bees, brood or queens.

Meanwhile we widely use formic acid and think nothing about it. Yet formic acid is well known to kill bees and brood and to stop a queen from laying for some period after treatment.  It is also far more dangerous for the bee keeper to handle.  In fact it is the most dangerous chemical to the bee keeper of any of the commonly used mitocides.  I am really surprised I have yet to hear of a bee keeper who needed a cornea transplant because of using formic acid.  I do know of one very close call.  In that case the thing that saved the bee keeper was he had a bottle of gator aid and washed his eye out with it immediately and then went to his eye doctor and got steroid drops to put in his eye for a couple of weeks to help healing.

Dick

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