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,