Hi Mike

As I am the one that had been promoting the use of bleach in syrup I feel
obligued to answer, even tough I should reply: search the archives :) I will
go for a longer answer.

I been using bleach for controling nosema for the past two years. First I
supposed was N.Apis, now I know from analysis done at Spain that it is
N.ceranae.

After some experimentation trying to kill the bees, or better to say ,
trying to arrive to LD50, I started using 500 ppm of Sodium Hipochlorite in
the syrup. That is 1 litre of NaHCl at 10% concentration per 55 gall drum .
That was done in spring and autum. I buy "pure" chlorine because the
household bleach have something in it that makes it unpalatable!!!

Past chilean winter, that BTW was very hard for our standard, I have many
colonies collapsing, so I tested for nosema again and spores counts were
again very high. So I have to develop a way to apply chlorine but without
giving to much syrup.

I went for dribbling like with oxalic acid 5cc per space between frames with
bees. I prepared this time a syrup like this:

250 parts HFCS
100 parts purify water
150 parts chlorine at 10%

If I am correct with my calculations this gives a 2% chlorine concentration.

I dribble one time on six hives and this were the results:

Spore counts Before treatment : 66
Spore count After treatment: 22

In the control group (4 hives) the spores increased in the same period from
57 to 73 on average.

I suggest to dribble 3 times: one per week during 3 weeks. Same as fumagilin

Then in spring I went back with the 500 ppm of chlorine in syrup. Latter on
I changed the chlorine for acetic acid in the same ratio, that is 1 litre
per drum. As was posted here do not mix chlorine with acetic. it will
gassify.


My final comments are::

1.- More research should be done (as always) Maybe Clorox wants to finance
it :)
2.- If you do not have fumagilin at hand or cant pay for it, dribble or feed
chlorine to your hives at least three times one per week.
3.- As syrup can rapidly spoil during warm weather due to fermentation and
colonization by yeasts, bacteria, and fungi, you can prevent this by
adding bleach.
4.- search the bee-l archives
5.- beware of chlorine contamination in the honey if you do not apply in the
correct time!!.


good night



-- 
Juanse Barros J.
APIZUR S.A.
Carrera 695
Gorbea - CHILE
+56-45-271693
08-3613310
http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/
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