Propolis itself was NOT tested!

Before waxing poetic about the magical 
properties of simple tree sap gathered
from random trees and carried home by 
the bees to be used "as is" in an 
unmodified form as glue and caulk, please 
at least read the abstract of the cited
paper.

The paper addresses the use of a substance
called an "ethanol extract of propolis"
rather than propolis, so it should be clear 
that there is quite a bit of ethanol in the 
mix applied to the cultured AFB.

Propolis alone is not going to have much
of any impact on the same sort of cultured
(vegetative stage) AFB in a Petri dish, 
and it certainly is not going to kill the
spore stage of AFB.  This should be 
obvious to anyone who has heard of 
autoclaving woodenware to sterilize 
the gear.  The reason that autoclaves 
work so well is that they can melt off 
the built-up propolis that covers viable
AFB spores and cultures.  Clearly, if 
viable AFB cultures are found under 
coverings of propolis, this proves that
propolis as used by bees will not kill or
control AFB in a direct-contact scenario.

So, what is the "exclusion zone" for propolis
on the vegetative stage of AFB? Zero.

While the exclusion zone for the extract seems
to be non-zero, one is forced to wonder what
the exclusion zone for pure ethanol alone would be.

And I'm not about to spray my combs with any amount
of ethanol, thank you very much, and I don't care 
what additives it contains, be it propolis extract,
Chevron's Techron, or STP fuel treatment.  

The ethanol goes in the bee TRUCK, not in the bee HIVES!

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