Hello All

I read a couple of interesting articles in the ABJ recently about Sucrose
Octanoate which will be on sale by Dadant in 2004. I contacted Dadant and
they advised me that this product will be in their 2004 Catalogue. I asked
them if it will be available from Thornes in the UK but they told me that
they were not sure at this stage.

I sent in an abstract of the comments made in the ABJ to 'An Beachaire' the
monthly journal of The Federation of Irish Beekeeping associations, and I
show below the salient details as published in the ABJ. I have ABJ
permission to reproduce this article.

'If you are a gardener, then you have probably heard of products to kill
mites on vegetable plants, fruit trees, etc. called insecticidal soaps.
Sucrose Octanoate Ester is a specially formulated insecticidal soap that is
made up of the sugar sucrose and fatty acids designed to kill varroa mites.
Because the product is made up of sugar and soap, the EPA quickly approved
it and made it exempt from tolerance levels on all food crops. All other
EPA-approved varroacides, because they are made of poisonous toxic
materials, have limits on how much can be tolerated in food, like honey.
Sucrose Octanoate does not have a limit because it is not poisonous or
toxic as are these other products. Is the product perfect? It does have one
drawback for those having large numbers of colonies. Sucrose Octanoate is
applied as a liquid spray and must come in contact with varroa mites to be
effective. It kills by rapidly suffocating the varroa mites or dissolving
the waxy coating that protects them from drying out. All your bees have to
be sprayed with the product, and those mites on those bees sprayed die quickly.

The material is sprayed on the bees. I used a garden type pump up sprayer
with the nozzle set on the finest mist setting when I tested the product.
Each frame must be removed and all bees sprayed in order to get contact
with those mites on the bees. It is suggested that you do this once a week
for three weeks in order to get the mites protected in the sealed cells. My
observation was that the bees, of course get all wet and messy looking, but
in a couple of hours they are all dry and back to normal. This varroacide
kills approximately 68% of total mites contacted in the first spray. So,
after three sprays, assuming complete coverage, 99% of mites should be
dead. The excellent news is that this material sailed through EPA because
it is non-toxic. You won't be poisoned from it because it is simply a
special formulation of sucrose (sugar) and a fatty acid (soap). It won't
contaminate honey, beeswax, or anything else.


The important take-home message is that this is the first class of
EPA-approved varroacides that is safe to use on or around honey bees,
beeswax, honey, and most importantly you.'




Sincerely

Tom Barrett
Dublin
Ireland

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