JC>From: John Caldeira <[log in to unmask]>
  >Date:         Thu, 18 Apr 1996 19:35:03 -0700
  >Subject:      Bee-L Censorship (was "Re: bee testing")
 
JC>1.  RE-USE OF APISTAN DOESN'T WORK.
 
JC>  "There are published reports from Europe showing 99% effectiveness of
  >Apistan strips used five times over a period of five years (Pechhacker,
  >1993).  I have also received personal communication from knowledgeable folks
  >outside the U.S. attesting to good efficacy with multiple use.  This issue
  >needs to be resolved as soon as possible."
 
Hi John,
 
  I believe that this was resolved by the manufacture by changing the
formulation or reducing the amount of total active chemical so that
when the strips are removed from the wrapper what chemical is not
lost in the packaging will soon be lost in the hive. Your guess as
to if this was done to increase sales or protect the beekeeping
industry. No, the retail cost of the strips did not go down because
the amount of active ingredients were lowered as the cost of the total
active ingredients is only a few cents to begin with and not a big
factor in the cost. The packaging costs are more then the chemical
costs, and the advertising costs are number one after the inflated costs
to register the chemical which seems to have included the start up costs
on the total business aromatized out to each strip sold.
 
JC>2.  LEAVING APISTAN IN HIVES LONGER THAN 8 WEEKS WILL ACCELERATE MITE
  >RESISTANCE TO FLUVALINATE.
 
It is very clear that if your v-mite stratagem is based 100% on
one chemical or chemical methods alone there is danger that you
will in time become hooked on chemicals. This has nothing to do with
effectiveness of treatments or your bees, its some kind of mental
condition in rural folks. Just look around at your farm neighbors for
examples. If it is true that resistance or contaminated honey is the
results of leaving the strips in then you should have been reading of
contaminated honey and hives with horrendous numbers of v-mites as many
beekeepers early on have been leaving the strips in year around. I know
one who has had his in for four years now and may be supplying you with
your bees and queens which you will not find with any more v-mites then
any others you could buy from any place that has v-mites. Could it be
the plastic strips themselves are the control agent?
 
I also know one other beekeeper here in California who has never treated
at all with anything. His numbers slipped from 2000 hives to 500 hives
in 3 years. Few mites could be detected in the 500 hives, in fact no more
mites then in hives with strip in. In fact few mites could be detected
in the hives that died, before they died, but they did crawl out and die
and the last one's to do so did have v-mites on a large percentage of
the bee's. The last 500 were doing good, and were all candidates for
breeders with a interest in natural resistance to varroa. It's too bad
the story of natural resistance and the opportunity to select and test
from a large number of hives never treated with chemicals to control
varroa mites ended when all 500 hives were stolen the spring of 1995.
 
JC>3.  IT WILL GET IN YOUR HONEY IF YOU LEAVE AN APISTAN STRIP IN YOUR HIVE
  >OVER THE WINTER.
 
So what if it does? Does anyone expect that as expressed in parts per
billion or trillion chemicals can not bee found in all bee products?
 
Early on I did put a strip in a one pound glass jar of white honey. It
concerned me more that the strip in that jar of honey was almost
invisible to the eye. I could pass that jar to a beekeeper with a spoon
telling him it was my best of the year and he would open it and proceed
to enjoy the honey if I did not stop him. I could hand that jar to a
group of beekeepers and tell them it had a full strip in it and they
would not believe me as they passed it around for a look see. Since then
the color of the strips has been changed and they may be a little easier
to see in a glass jar of table honey.
 
Yes when the honey was tested from the combs adjacent to the strips it
did contain some chemical, so did the honey in the glass jar, but was it
in a amount that could be harmful if consumed? We all are protected by
God and the fact that contaminated honey when mixed with the
uncontaminated honey in the extraction process is diluted enough not to
be harmful and in most cases detected at action levels. Normal further
processing of honey tends to mask and or dilute most problems, God is
Good, God is Great! God Loves All Beekeepers!
 
  >even ONE substantiated case of fluvalinate from Apistan in honey?
 
Is anyone looking is a better question besides the Sue Bee Honey Co-Op.
 
Yes there are "cases" of fluvalinate being found in ppb in bee products
depending on what you define a "case" as. If you mean that the
national press gave time to warning the public of the danger of it all
then NO substantiated case has been reported outside of the honey
industry, so far.
 
It is not a problem in Canada, eat Canadian honey! New Zealand er's,
eat your own!<G>
 
It is also not a problem in the United States and not expected to become
one. Amatraz is a problem for many beekeepers who have been found with
it in their honey. Using Amatraz also is reported to cause a condition
called "mad" bee's, as early on beekeepers who used it reported that in
follow up work the bees were always's very aggressive and could not be
handled without good protection and lots of smoke. This is a common
condition of bees suffering from pesticide poisoning immediately after
any application and suggests that these beekeepers may be poisoning
their own bees which is not news.
 
JC>  I'm not a professional scientist, and won't support any position without
  >facts, but think we need to keep open discussion to learn the facts.  And
  >if someone comes forward to tell us that the same moth crystals or menthol
  >is available at Walmart at a fraction of the price that Mann Lake is asking,
  >that's nice to know too.
 
Well if you are a professional beekeeper you would know that not to
share your wealth with as many middle men as you can is a NO NO even
if the only difference between the source materials you are interested
in is one word in the warning label or use statement on the package.
 
JC>No one here is fit to be a censor.
 
I don't no about censoring, but all my posts are filtered to remove
the big chunks or something.
 
                            ttul, the OLd Drone
 
 
 
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