At 08:29 PM 27/10/96 -0500, you wrote:
>I am interested to know what the difference between
>letting the girls clean out cappings and letting them clean out the
>extracted supers is.  I also stack those in the woods and let 'em go at it.
> It that also a problem?
 
Yes it is.
 
The spores for a lot of the pothogens that trouble bees can be transmitted
by the honey.  If the colony from which you extract has a history of any of
these pothogens, you are likely to have more of these spores in your honey
than you think.  Consequently when you invite all the foragers in the in the
neighborhood to a free nosh they can pick up the pathogens in your honey and
take them back to their own colony.  Alternatively, foragers from diseased
hives may deposit those same pathogens on your empty frames.
 
I suppose a lot depends on th background level of infection.  Here in NSW
that background level is low and we want to keep it that way.  Allowing
beekeepers to deliberately expose diseased material is regarded as too
dangerous for health of the whole industry so the practice is banned.
 
In other parts of the world (yours perhaps?) the background level of
infection may be much higher.  In this case exposing old combs, supers,
cappings etc may not make any difference.
 
A good beekeeper will stay on top of the disease problem and not allow any
hives to develop any symptoms.  If you are one of them, try getting your
honey tested for the presence of disease pathogens.  When this was
introduced here a few years ago, several conscientious beekeepers got a
nasty shock.
 
 
 
 
Regards
 
Chris Allen