Greg :
 
On Mon, 19 May 1997, Greg Hankins wrote:
 
> >2. 70.8% of beeswax samples from outside of Germany contain detectible
> >levels of fluvalinate (compared to 13.2 % of German samples).
 
It would be nice to have some continental European beekeepers comment on
this.  I think the year the study was done when most German beekeepers were
either using coumaphos (Perizin - a systemic added to syrup), bromopropylate
(the Folbex smoking strip treatment), or formic acid.  While domestic
German wax samples had little fluvalinate compared to imported wax, they
had considerably more detectible levels of coumaphos (52.7 % for domestic
samples vs. 12.5% for foriegn samples) and bromopropylate (72.2% domestic
vs. 43.8% foreign).  The author of the paper (Klaus Wallner) suggested
that domestic German wax may develop detectible residues of fluvalenate
(and flumethrin) as these products become more widely used in Germany.
 
An interesting note about residual acaracides in wax.  I read a short
note from the German Bee Research meeting describing an experiment which
suggest that both Apistan and Bayvarol (flumethrin) 'leave long-term
residues on combs, which are sufficeint to kill a large number of
invading or artificially-introduced Varroa mites'.  Combs treated with
Apistan 1 year before and used to house 4 infested 1 kg packages resulted
on average of 50 % mite mortality over 6 d, compared to 8.5 % mite
mortality in 5 infested packages housed with comb that had never been
treated.  I wonder what implications this residual action might have.  Will it
speed the evolution of fluvalinate resistance (there may always be a background
hum of fluvalinate in a colony) ?  Will it kill mites infesting brood
whose cell walls contain residues ?  Should we be going to the expense of
trying to break the residues down, or encourage them ?
 
 
Cheers
Adony
 
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** Adony P. Melathopoulos *********
*** Center for Pest Management ****
**** Simon Fraser University ******
***** Burnaby, British Columbia ***
****** Canada, V5A-1S6 ************
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