>
>      >Well, I have gotten SOME advice. Still nothing real
>      positive.....
>      >Still waiting for ideas.
>
>      Mike:
>
>      Here's a non-conventional treatment for wax moths, but natural. An
>      insect specific virus which infects only wax moths (doesn't harm bees,
>      birds, humans, etc) exists. You can find it in the literature under
>      Galleria mellonella Nuclear Polyherdosis Virus (GmNPV).
>
>      This virus is completely safe, as this and related viruses have been
>      assayed for their effects on humans, etc. (Not exactly true - we are
>      doing a lot of microbial pesticide work.  This assumption probably
>      holds, and these pesticides generally are host specific and are not
>      harmful to non-target organisms -  but, tests have been rather hit and
>      miss in terms of which non-target organisms have been examined and the
>      appropriateness or relevancy of the assay is suspect in some cases.
>      So, I'm not about to say any of these are completely safe, just less
>      hazardous than most of the alternatives. This may change as the
>      bio-engineers get into the act and try to improve on nature.
 
Jerry Bromenshenk
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The University of Montana