On page 18 of an article by Dr. Malcom Sanford in the June 2003 Bee Culture
magazine exploring world wide use of Formic acid  he makes a comment on
coumaphos use which I wonder myself about.

So far my fears have fell on deaf ears. Perhaps others are seeing the same
thing with queens in their bees.

Dr. Sanford's statement from article:

"Far more problematic is the organophosphate called coumaphos. many believe
the premature failure (supercedure) of many commercial queens in the U.S.
can be blamed on contamination of the nest with this material."

I personally believe the above has merit or at least that coumaphos queen
contamination is happening

. Although researchers are not finding coumaphos levels high enough for
researchers to say for sure nest contamination is a problem early queen
supercedure is on the rise in hives of commercial beekeepers using
checkmite.

Bob Harrison hypothesis:

I believe the queen spends her whole life on the brood comb and in contact
with bees with coumaphos while treatment is going on (Let alone actually
crawling over the checkmite strip).

 Many treat twice a year with more than one checkmite strip so a queen in
her second year could have been exposed for four  treatments at the end of
her second year and a queen at the end of her third year up to six treatment
periods of coumaphos.

Because several of my close researcher friends have said that from their
testing coumaphos contamination in brood comb is in their opinion not high
enough in the general commercial hive population to be causing the
supercedure problem I have decided they are probabbly right and the problem
is a contamination problem with the queen herself.

I also believe that queens in their second and third season are at the most
risk.

Queen loss among commercial beekeepers this year in California was at record
numbers and many were at a loss to understand why.

Comments?

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Odessa, Missouri

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