Your post is very interesting as I am right now packing all of my not-on-a-stack equipment to take down to a gamma irradiation facility in NJ for treatment next Monday.  (Montgomery County Beekeeper's Association of Pennsylvania organizes this annual event.)

I have no idea what the dosage will be, but will enquire as I am trying to clean up equipment from EFB hives, not AFB. It would be a lot of unneeded work if the planned irradiation will be insufficient, or otherwise the incorrect for my problem. Can you point me to a reference to the correct dosing?

For me, lacking any kind of a truck, the main expense is the rental of a vehicle to move my two pallets the 287 miles to the facility.  Unfortunately, I have to make the trip twice as there is no chance of overnight processing.  The trucking more than triples the cost of treatment itself ($178/pallet, up to 6 feet high, and up 1,500 pounds of weight).  But evaluating the comparative cost of abandonning affected the equipment vs having it irradiated made it the decision easy.  And I am taking advantage of having only slightly more than one pallet of dirty stuff to treat all of my bee equipment, even it has little likelihood of being contaminated.   

I have been surprised at how antsy the idea of irradiation makes some people.  

Nancy

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