In article <[log in to unmask]>, Karen Oland <[log in to unmask]> writes >Polystyrene would have to be rejected on any environmental grounds. I think that is an emotive knee-jerk reaction. Scandinavia is about as eco-friendly as you can get. They cite environmental grounds in their reasoning behind using them. So at least some places with immaculate credentials would see fit to disagree with you. >2) If having to burn equipment in the case of disease, wood is a relatively >clean burning fuel, while polystyrene is not. Not to mention the large >puddle of goo left at the end, What puddle of goo? We are talking expanded polystyrene here, not solid stuff. It burns away to nothing. And it does not need much in the way of fuel to get it going. A couple of handfuls of dry grass and twigs, or if you like, an egg cup full of petrol (gasoline). Not being a scientist I cannot tell you what goes into the air, but for sure there is no residue problem where you get rid of it. However, properly looked after, these are boxes for LIFE. You need never cut down another tree to replace them. If you break them they glue back together easily with a good wood glue and are then just about as strong as new. I have broken a few (mostly in one incident where I ran over a stack I was unaware was behind the truck) and have repaired them ALL with ease in a very short time. So in 5 years absolutely zero to burn and zero to landfill, and no weathering or ageing apparently taking place at all either. Wish I could say the same for my wooden ones, which cost more to begin with, and cost me many dollars a year to keep up the endless repair and replacement cycle. >(while if you have used only environmentally >friendly paints, you could break and burn woodenware even inside, if in a >small enough quantity). Up to a point yes, but you are left with more residue to dispose of in these cases than with polystyrene. Even if we are just talking about the nails alone. > >3) At the end of life, wooden ware will either decompose well if tossed out >or may be easily burned (and if no lead paint, the ashes spread in pasture >after removing nails). Polystyrene contributes to the landfill and >essentially never breaks down. Look after it and it need never get there. The pollination benefits due to the superior colony strength are not taken into account in your condemnation. The bees seem very happy in the boxes and they suffer from so many fewer problems. Perhaps you think it eco-friendly to condemn 4 times more colonies to winter death? Getting upset at polystyrene beehives, when they have such market benefits, is not, in my opinion, a balanced response. I do not pretend they are perfect, but they are the best I have found so far and I feel the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. If you are in an area where the climate is very hard on woodenware you can be replacing boxes at an alarming rate. In polystyrene this is markedly reduced. Even the fuel expended in getting your woodenware felled, shipped, sawn, cut to size, and delivered to you, is largely of petrochemical origin. There are ecological negatives on both sides. Also, have you seen how degraded land is after a crop of trees has been felled? Only suitable for more trees without vast efforts to clear the roots and stumps. To get the sizes needed for deep boxes you need OLD trees too. In some parts of the area I go to in summer with the bees they are still trying to repair damage done by tree felling 60 years ago, and the landscape is still seriously degraded. The deep rutting from extraction work, the mineral deficient soils left behind, and their acidification as the old wood breaks down. The loss of species smothered by the dense canopy of conifers (its a desert in there) takes a long time to repair itself, if it ever does. Not topics the timber industry care to dwell on. This is getting seriously off topic, (I did not even post it on Bee-L) when the only subject was thickness of hive walls and bee health, coupled to a question about polystyrene from Scandinavia. -- Murray McGregor