Peter will object that we haven't published all of this -- but any chemist
would also predict this.  We have performed 10s of thousands of analyses of
bees, pollen, wax, etc.  Wax acts as a sink for many organic chemicals --
that's been published in many reports to our sponsors, and obviously,
others have found chemicals in wax.

Here's the rub, I can spend 30 minutes running down the obvious references,
or you can do it.  They are available.  I have a few minutes to make a
quick response, but I don't have time to conduct a search for references
that are readily available.  Right now I'm pulling together a talk for the
MT/Wyoming Beekeepers meeting later this week.


Simply stated, some chemicals are attracted to wax and migrate or move
through it.  Old or new or any mixture of the two, same process.

New wax is also moved by bees-- we have reported this in technical reports
to EPA.  When we digitized the amount of wax drawn on new foundation, then
got a nectar flow, on our next inspection, we found that the digitized data
sets showed a reduction in the amount of newly drawn comb.  Apparently --
and this is speculation, faced with the need to accomodate the flow, the
bees removed newly drawn wax from the foundation and used it to repair and
cap the drawn combs where the bulk of the flow was being stored.  That may
be quicker or more economical than producing more wax.

Now, we also know that the levels of chemical residues in wax from the same
combs varies with time of year.  Levels tend to be higher in summer, fall;
lowest in the spring.  Lots of things are probably going on here --
chemical migration and breakdown, but also we see bees tearing down and
repairing comb.   Old comb mixed with new wax would dilute the residues to
some degree.

Jerry