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Subject:
From:
Alexander Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 28 Nov 2019 14:18:04 -0500
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Richard, I believe your calculations are too conservative.  

If a 2g OAV is applied to a have 2 deeps and 3 honey supers high, that's approximately 4 deeps worth of frames.   2g/4 = approximately 0.5 grams enter into the honey supers.

So 0.5g is not evenly distributed among the honey, there's a large % of that OA that gets stuck to the bees, the hive woodwork, and only perhaps 50% actually enter into the honey.  

So 0.5g/2 = 0.25g divided amongst, say 120 pounds of honey.

Barely 0.25g enters among 3 supers full of honey, and that's not counting the OA that gets stuck to bees, stuck to burr comb, etc, or is removed by the bees.

In conclusion, if each super weighs 40 pounds, thats 0.25g of OA divided among 120lbs of honey.

Even if one were to apply OAV once every 3 days for the entire year, it'd be physically impossible to get even close to anything resembling a lethal dose.

There was a thread on bee source a while back, someone did similar calculations and concluded that OAV with honey supers present is perfectly safe, and barely adulterates the honey.

I'm inclined to agree, and this explains why everyone in Europe freely doses hives with OAV without any worries about honey contamination.

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