Hi All/Allen

Allen, you mentioned  you plan to treat your hive boxes by sort of
frying them in parrafin of some sort.

I have recently been trying to find a way of getting rid of a spore
forming fungus for a local company and have found out some rather
interesting things.

If you have a fungus growing in wood it grows slowly. As it does so
it sort of builds up a store of 'fungus nutrients'. If you kill this
fungus by heating, other fungi just come and use up the nutrients -
ie, the company I am dealing with autoclaves wooden pallets (food
grade application so cannot use wood preservatives) for 24 hours at
121C and high pressure. Within 56 hours of coming out of the
autoclave these pallets are full of viable spores again - ie the wood
has been completely invaded again. A big waste of money.

We have helped them with a temporary solution - if the pallets are
sprayed with the fungicide - Vircon (if anybody wants its suppliers I
can give them details) as soon as they come out, this reinvasion is
prohibited. Further treatment with paint then stops recoloniaztion
and because Vircon is FDA approved does not damage the products
stored on the pallets.

If one deep fries a hive body the chances of killing all spores by a
15 minutes submersion is reasonable if the oil is extremely hot.
However if it is too hot, as Allen has mentioned, the wood becomes
porous.

A simple test would be as follows:

Take a piece of fungus infected wood, place in oil for time usually
used for a hive box. Remove the wood and place in a sterile jar and
cover with tin foil. After five and ten days place a wort agar plate
(Available as sterile preprepared plates from Difco or most breweries
will give some out) in the jar for a while with the lid of for a few
minutes and then put the lid back and incubate at room temperature
for 5 days and ten days and score colonies formed - if you get any,
the treatment did not kill the fungus and the wax could maybe be
hotter.

Keep well

Garth
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
6139 South Africa

Time = Honey