<<Mark Berninghausen said,  "Dick, what is your "human health" concern? Do 
you think that there is too much fluvalinate in honey? What is your 
tolerance level?"

 I was interested to see if there was a consensus on the human consumption 
of honey that came from supers over a hive treated with Apistan. I had no 
preconception of the amounts of fluvalinate in honey. I also have no idea 
of what the human tolerance level is.

I was happy to learn that fluvalinate is hydrophobic, and therefore has 
limited partitioning (0.002 mg/L or 2 micrograms/L) into water-based 
liquids (honey), and at this point I am not overly concerned with the 
build-up of fluvalinate in wax because I don't plan on making a habit of 
using Apistan, and I periodically remove old comb. On the other hand, the 
Material Safety Data sheet (MSDS) for Apistan lists acute toxicity for 
rainbow trout as 2.7 micrograms/L in a 96 hour study! So IF there is as 
much as 2 micrograms/L (solubility in water) in my honey, and 2.7 will 
kill trout, I'm not comfortable ingesting it myself. Am I understanding 
the MSDS correctly?

I am a hobby beekeeper with a max. of 5 hives (I do work for the USGS, but 
has nothing to do with my beekeeping hobby).

<<Keith Malone says, "It is sadly amusing how chemicals are blindly 
excepted just
because a government agency says an expectable level of residue is safe 
for human consumption."

Understandable........as advances are made with equipment/techniques used 
for detecting and quantifying lower concentrations of chemical compounds, 
the 'allowable' levels for human exposure often drop as well. What was 
once thought of as an 'acceptable level' can be 'unacceptable' later.

I would certainly like to see strict regulations on 'bad' chemicals in 
commercial honey, and would love it if I could manage my small apiary 
without 'bad' chemicals (and will try to do so in the future). For now, I 
would like to be able to utilized the 100 or so pounds of honey that was 
exposed to Apistan strips last Fall. Half will likely be fed back to new 
packages of bees. I'm hoping that as they ingest it and otherwise 
're-work' it around the hive, any fluvalinate that may be present will be 
further degraded.

Dick Cartwright
Long Island, NY


-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---