JJB>Sorry, but the ranking part of this statement is not correct. We have >spent 22 years looking at "dirt" in our environment with honey bees. Hi Jerry, It all depends on one's perspective. I was not putting down your work as I am sure it is as good or better then any other's and confirms what many beekeepers have assumed for as long as man has kept bees and that is the site one keeps his bees is all important and if you keep them on a dung heap you can expect to find dung residue in the hive, or on the bees. I have no doubt that the bee itself is the first line of entry of contaminants into the bee hive, the hairy beast does not always clean her feet or hair, and if what she carries in her honey tank or pollen baskets is dirty then what is stored in the hive may also be dirty. Bee's here bring in sulfur dust and in the days of smudge pots and burning tires to warm our orchards it was quite common to find all the pollen collected in the early mornings black with the heavy elements in the smoke. None of this effected more then the bees themselves and that is what I was trying to write about. The problem is that most of us do not eat the bee, so we look at the products we do eat. We look at the honey at the retail level, we look at the pollen at the retail level. If we really wanted to find what was in the bee food and honey before it is processed by the bees we would look at the nectar and pollen itself before the bees collected it. I know that we would find things that would not be appropriate for human food at the end of the honey making process. With pollen I know more but won't go into the details of very dangerous molds, spores, and the like that I have been able to recover from my own pollen traps that over time became part of the reason I gave up my own leadership in the pollen production business to others with less knowledge and experience. There may be some things we just don't want to know about and especially the things we can not change. If the only honey I can produce is from a dung heap then maybe I should accept it or quit producing honey. When everyone's honey comes from the same dung heap it will not make much difference and we all will have to look for something else to judge our honey by other then its dung content. The average beekeeper in California also looks at his bee's that may have died from the regulated mis-use of farm chemicals when his bee's are dead. If he is experienced he will also look at the crops the bees were working including the target and non target crops. Maybe your lab has developed the methods to detect all these materials on bees, but here in the real time world of beekeeping one soon finds out that other labs have not and if it is desirable to look for farm pesticides on the bee itself is low on the list of things that can reflect what may have killed the bees, but we always look. What I was referring to is the "honey" that reaches the consumer not the honey the bees may eat that is in the hive at the time the beekeepers uses what ever he uses to control mites...I am sure that if one has the right equipment it could be demonstrated that any time the neighbors cow's pass gas a record of some change in the bee hive could be made and this would be interesting and would add to the basic knowledge that we all need about our bees and our environment if it has not already been done in England.<G> JJB>The good news is that little of the environmental junk gets into honey! >But, that only applies to sources outside the hive. In some circles the little that gets into the hive products is the problem if it is detectable in the consumer products at any level. I believe this is what much of our food safety code is all about. The problem is that some have little faith in that code and they may feel that when a product is surveyed at ppm and is declared free of whatever and then the same sample is tested a ppb, or ppt it is positive it is less then truthful to say at the ppm level the product was clean. Maybe scientists understand the difference, but some of us who are only beekeepers and consumers are not as wise. I am sorry I did not make myself more clearer on what I consider as target "honey" and that is not what I find in a bees gut or in the hive, it is what I sell to others and what others can buy from their local super market. >Chemicals used inside the hive can go right into the honey or >wax - especially those in liquid or volatile forms. No one that I know would dispute this or have I as it seems reasonable that what goes in should be free to get into the wood, metal, wax, pollen and honey, and it may be the basis that has dictated for as long as I can remember the when, what, and how beekeepers use farm chemicals to control pests, predators, and disease as it has not proven practical to treat individual bees, or their early individual life cycles though I have no doubts that some have been able to do this in the lab. I for many years used salt as a carrier or regulator for chemicals used in my bee hives. It went to the nails and ate them up in a very short time. In a year or two it was impossible to move a load of bees without leaving a dozen or more bottoms behind. I no longer use salt in my bee hives but do add it at times to the water I supply in areas that I can train my bees to use that water. I also add other things, but none of them are recommended by anyone but other beekeepers so I won't say that adding chlorine can save the loss of valuable bee locations in areas that have swimming pools within bee flight range, or some beekeepers believe that it also has medical value and can prevent loss from bad food during the winter. Of course when I added salt and chlorine to my bees hives or their food products such as the water they need at all times to consume any food, for sure it could have been recovered by any lab technician and I would/could have been in a world of hurt with some regulatory authorities. But I question or I should say the question should be was it detectable in the honey I extracted six months or a year later, or was it effective for the use I intended it to bee. I can tell you for sure I have never had any honey that was salty, but won't comment on some other flavors I have detected when consuming my own and others raw honey. JJB>Apistan is designed to control release - squirting cotton balls or dunking >cardboard is not the same. I have not read that they were the same except that maybe in areas of the world that they may be allowed they could be the same or better as being cost effective in some pest control management program as any other method. I must admit that to the average US beekeeper the buzz words "controlled release" sounds good, it is good advertisement, good press, good theater. I am not convinced it is all that great for controlling bee pests and I do not endorse the use of this or any other product for the control of bee pests, bee disease, or bee predators and I am at a loss to understand why so many people whom I respect for their own knowledge and experience do. On the surface it appears that birds of a feather flock together and I understand the old school ties between scientists, but I don't understand the same from within the beekeeping industry...that in total has suffered much from the same nice folks just trying to do us all a great service and make a few honest bucks helping us out selling chemicals to our farm neighbors to save their crops from perceived treats with fancy advertizements, nice young attractive farm agents from the best schools, and millions of research dollars, and the best political connections money can buy. All singing the same tune, treat the pests that may or may not be a real threat with what may be the legal, proper, and recommended but still kills a lot of bees and other things not targeted for control.<BS> The fact is that paper, card board, food grade grease, cotton, wood, sugar, even air, and many other natural and man made materials can be just as effective as a controlled release applicator as a plastic strip as said to be by its many protectors in the Apistan camp. To this beekeeper Apeestan is only another farm pesticide in a clumsy applicator and deserves little of the respect some would show it other then what I would give any other poison and I for one am disgusted at their advertizements showing honey and their dirty product in the same picture and shame on those who are not and shame on those who take their money to promote the use of their product. Some call it free enterprise advertisement, but when there is no competition it is little more then a bribe to a few to influence the rest of us. But then I am only one beekeeper and I am sure others feel different as I am just as sure that more then one beekeepers has added these strips to the smoker and hive tool box that is mandatory to going out to a bee yard. This is sad (IMHO) for all beekeepers!! JJB>Many of the studies using bees as monitors have only looked at a few >chemicals or at one hive component (honey, wax, pollen). We have looked >at almost all forms and kinds of chemicals, by all routes of entry, and at >all parts of the colony and hive. Forager bees,nurse bees, pupae, wax, >honey, pollen - all have been investigated. This is great. I wish I could say that I have been able to find all these interesting studies and papers and had committed them to memory, but I have not or if I have I was not able to translate them to something that I could use with my own meager resources in the bee yard to protect my bees or better understand what is affecting them. Some times the generalist does not get the recognition that the specialists gets, I commend you for your efforts and know that you will continue and I will make a greater effort to search out your good works. JJB>Ok, now for our summary. The main indicator is not pollen, wax, or honey >- it is the forager bee returning to the hive. And contrary to >expectations, bees pick up lots of pollutants directly from the air. >Water is another source. Pollen can be a route of entry into the hive, >but nectar is usually the least important route of entry. Chemicals that >occur as gases concentrate in field bees (at least double the level of >hive bees (again, industrial gases, this does not apply to hive >fumigants). Particulate borne chemicals pass rapidly from forager bees >throughout the hive - nurse bees, bee bread, etc. I can not say that what you say is the fact for all who look at bees and bee product contamination, but your approach is as good as my own which is dictated by my own resources. I would have NO chance to identify what is in my own hives, hive products or bees if I were restricted to your own superior mythology. I guess it all depends on what level we live on. Down here on the ground zero level the technology is not yet available to test the bees themselves let alone the air they were in yesterday or last week when they may have come into contact with a undesirable environmental contaminate such as a farm chemical. Environmental science is not rewarded by the public like advances in medical science. I know that living under high power lines is OK, Environmental Scientists hired by the electric company have said so many times, but I also know that a higher number of people who live under these same lines suffer more unexplained cancers then those who do not. I don't want to live under the environmentally safe power lines myself..I know of NO environmental scientist that live under them. JJB>The second ranked indicator (for volatile chemicals) is the air inside the >hive box. For metals and other chemicals that stick to dust particles I >would rank pollen as the second most useful indicator. In addition, by >sampling bees and pollen, we can get some idea of what the source might >be. For my own practical purposes I rank POLLEN as number uno. Much has been looked at, and much more needs to be looked at and anyone can find a lab in almost any port in the world that can look and understand what they are looking at and seeing. JJB>Wax ranks a distant third for environmental monitoring. It is a sink for >lowest in mid-summer. Because one does not know when the wax became >contaminated (could be as much as 8-10 years ago or yesterday), old wax is >not very useful. Putting strips into the hive and letting the bee draw it >out provides a means of aging the wax. Yes, all this is very true, and it is also may be true that wax can be very useful in looking for certain classes of chemicals and maybe more wax has been looked at by commercial chemists then honey and pollen put together. Heck in high school I had a chem teacher who was trying to make 100% pure chemical beeswax in his lab, a real alchemists dream. He never reached his goal after burning his garage workshop and home down two times making a car wax that he hawked from early day TV. His program followed 8 hours of viewing the TV test pattern and was watched by 100% of the audience. JJB>Honey has been shown to be useful - for example, Roger Morse did some >honey work years ago. But, compare honey to other materials or bees and >one gets a different answer. For example, metals usually occur at levels >10-100 times higher in pollen and bees than in honey. Since the Honey is the commodity that we honey producers trade in it is the prime target for casual investigation at the retail level, we don't have the same objectivity that a research chemist has, anything less would be putting the cart before the horse since our honey is in the consumers shopping cart now and we need to know and understand what is in it now. JJB>Some things do go into the nectar and honey. Spray a flower with >organophosphate insecticides, and you will see it in honey. Tritium also >appears in honey (but only at very unusual sites like federal burial sites >for radioactive materials). Yes, and if enough old ladies whizz in the pacific the increased salt will melt the polar ice and Montana will be the west coast. All this is interesting and good science but what have you found in a jar of honey you purchased to eat from your local A&P and how does what you are doing relate to what I have tried to say as a beekeeper other then the early warning all failed to hear when the canary continued to sing because the mine was an open pit...in Montana?<G> JJB>However, compared to other colony and hive components, we continue to be >amazed at how "clean" honey remains. However, that does not mean that Yes, it is amazing to some, but also makes common sense to some of us old beekeepers who are seeing other beekeepers doing a good job using their own common sense God may have given us all and what we have picked up along the way to protect our bees from their environment. I don't know any beekeepers who goes out of their way to produce honey from the Western Azalea because it is well known that the plant can produce honey that is toxic to both bees and man. But I am 100% sure in wet years bees work the heck out of the Western Azalea, but few have ever detected it in honey and felt its effects. I also know no beekeeper who go out of their way to poison their own bees or honey with farm chemicals. JJB>Does this means we shouldn't eat honey or pollen. No! They are good >products, amazing so. But, beekeepers have to treat their product with >care. The highest levels of foreign chemicals in bee products are almost >always a result of chemicals used by beekeepers or as a consequence of >contamination introduced while handling and processing the product. I don't believe this is anymore then your own personal slant on commercial beekeeping and no more then what I have said again and again. Not the results of research you have done on retail market honey and I assume you only are referring to your own experience as I have to my own. I would not want to eat some of the honey that you have reported finding what ever in your tests, especially if it will make me glow in the dark. At the same time I can assure all that read this I can bring into any discussion, class, or courtroom, beekeepers who this year or most any year have lost more bees to the legal permitted mis-use of pesticides that exceed the total number of bees killed from day one of modern beekeeping by the chemical lobby straw man of chemical misuse by beekeepers themselves in the US... Just ten days ago I went out into a bee yard for a friend to check some bees, three truck loads, that were suffering from a quick decline. The were one day too long in the flight or drift range of a cotton field 60-90 days ago that was legally treated with a recommended pesticide product. Or the mite strips could have did it as each hive had a strip or two, I suspect it was a miticide all right but not the one the beekeeper was using. In any case of the three loads of bees, 360 hives, none will be alive come 1997, thats a fact the beekeeper has to live with. The bees will die free of mites. This one beekeeper is lucky as he has 10,000 other hives that were not in the same area, but other beekeepers were not so lucky and many of them will have some heavy fall/winter losses to discuss next spring no matter what they have done or do to correct the problem, and no doubt some will blame mites, and little they know they may be right just not the bee mites. JJB>So much for my soap-box. Hope this helps clarify some issues. Yes, all is clear, you are a professional university beekeeper and research scientist with many degrees, awards, and much experience and have a well done professional page on the internet. I have great respect for your opinions, but then I am only a lowly undereductated misunderstood tired old experienced professional commercial beekeeper who has never said my posts were anymore them my own personal opinions for what they are worth from 40+ years commercial experience. I have no ural or whats it, nothing at all to sell to anyone, no papers, no degrees, but you can call my own bbs on your own nickel at 209-826-8107 or search the net for my numerous internet references.<G> ttul Andy- JJB>Jerry Bromenshenk >The Unviversity of Montana-Missoula >http://grizzly.umt.edu/biology/bees >[log in to unmask] --- ~ QMPro 1.53 ~ ... To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,