> I am surprised that butyric anhydride, Bee Robber, is still "approved"
for use.

Me too, actually; there seems to be no rhyme or reason to these things.

> There is research, Canadian at that, out there to show that it leaves a
residue in the honey just like other bee repellents.

With today's sensitive instruments and techniques, I suspect they could
even find a residue reading from my aftershave a week after I walk by a
hive.  I guess it is really a question of at what levels, and how harmful
the substance is, and whether it is GRAS.

> Here in Australia, it must be over 10 years ago that we stopped using
repellents.

I quit at about the same time, but have had a can around for years,
unopened,and thought I'd play with it a bit since we were having real
problems with abandonment if I'm not right there at the yard to 'read' the
bees.

>The most popular was phenol (carbolic acid).

That was Good Stuff.  I worked well.  I never could figure out, though,
whether it was quite benign (I think it is used in cough drops) or noxious
(Some reports claimed it accumulated and caused nerve damage).  I do know
that it was not a good thing to have on skin.

> The most popular way of clearing bees here in Australia is clearer
boards, called escape boards in North America,

Tell us more.  Do all Aussie such epers have bee-tight supers?  Or do some
use big bags that pull down over the boxes to protect from robbing?  Or do
they tape all the cracks and holes?  I've used them, but never liked them
much except for comb honey.   The best ones IMO are the so-called Quebec
boards.  What type is used in Aus?

> but some do use bee blowers and the abandonment method is  practiced in
the yapunyah country.  Abandonment is
> not feasible in most other areas because of robbing.

Abandonment is our main and only method most years, but the weather has
been so odd this year that abandonment was getting too unpredictable for my
staff, who have limited understanding of bees (and English).  Abandonment
works well only during a decent flow, since for abandonment to work, the
bees in each hive must all be flying every day -- and thus be well
accustomed to finding their hive -- or they will just sit in the boxes
until the beekeeper gives up and blows them out or gives up and puts the
supers back.  Abandonment can also work during light robbing, but is very
tricky and not much fun under those conditions.  The bee-blowing pages I
posted here were about boxes on which we had attempted abandonment, but
failed since the bees had been confined by weather and lack of forage in
the days leading up to our attempt.

allen
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/