Dee Lusby wrote:

>Docteur André Simoneau writes:
>
>If my weight is 100 kilos I could intake 300 mg of formic
>acid every day, Natural content of honey is 85 mg/kg and
>after spring treatment, the residue goes up to close to 300
>mg/kg. When I wrote that 300mg/kg is far from the
>acceptable daily intake limit, I meant that nobody eats 1
>kg of honey a day. My point is that treatment with formic
>acid will not constitute a toxi danger for human
>consumption.
>
>Reply:
>This is very good information to know. But seeing that the
>residue goes up to close to 300 mg/kg for normal treatments
>(assuming it could be higher or lower for not normal then)
>how long does it stay at this level and at what rate
>decline back down to normal following treatment? Also since
>humans are much bigger then bees by weight, etc. then the
>residues would effect the bees and other relationships
>within a colony.
>
You cannot make this statement - well, lets face it, you did, but you
cannot make this statement and be completely truthful with the
information at hand.  Here's why.  First, he gave the dose as a mg/kg.
 Do you know what the lethal levels of formic acid on a mg/kg basis are
in bees?  Nope.  These things are often species specific - so if you do
not know, you can merely speculate.  If you are speculating you can do
so in the negative (well it is prolly bad) or the positive (its prolly
OK) and without data - either argument is as valid as the other, which
is to say, not really valid at all.

Second, because the subtle nuances of different species physiologie's
can have profound effects on their ability to deal with different
substances, it is hard to make sweeping generalizations, in other words:
 different species may be better able to cope with certain substances
than others.  This is not size dependant it is species dependant.  In
fact if there is one such generalization that works much of the time it
is that smaller critters can tolerate more of a given substance than
larger critters - on a per pound (or kg) basis. In this instance thought
the issues of the difference or similarities in toxicity between man and
bee are sufficiently different that such an inference would be wildly
speculative and very unproductive.

So if you seek to be accurate you could say the following: "the residues
might effect the bees and other relationships within a colony." not "
the residues would effect the bees and other relationships within a
colony"  I.e., you do not know if it will have any effect in such at all.

>You then wrote:
>It is also mentionned in the above reference, that a daily
>consumption of 2000 to 4000mg in short term would not cause
>any intoxication symptoms in man.
>
>Reply:
>I did not know that this could cause intoxication symptoms
>in man in the short term.
>
I beleive, he wrote above that it does not cause intoxication in the
short term.  Of course it could - at much higher levels - after all it
is an acid, and therefore at elast a local irritant in sufficient
concentration.  Any substance, in sufficient quantity can be dangerous
anc act as a toxin.  Even honey.  The definition her for intoxication is
simply to poison, not to make drunken or stuperous BTW.

> But you mention short term. Is
>there a long term (brain problems) concerning problems with
>usage and exposure (breathing).
>
According to the websites posted - not at such levels.

> What would be the
>intoxication symptoms concerning bees? This I have never
>heard about, that is, formic acid causing intoxication in
>bees?
>
You mentioned brood being killed if the stuff is used improperly - that
would be one.

Keith

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