As a preface, let me stress that Bob's approach assumes that one is using his "SOE car-wash" technique only AFTER removing one's honey crop. This eliminates concerns about impact on honey from the equation up front. > Moreover, SOE is known to be almost completely safe for the operator What actual science was done to "prove" this? The testing appears to be limited to acute LD-50 mammal testing, which does not tend to reveal the impact of long-term occupational exposure, which is how organophostphates got started. That said, SOE does look about as benign as one could hope for in a varroacide, so I'd agree that it poses about the same risk to the operator as HFCS might pose. > and unlikely to contaminate honey. I'd agree much less with this claim, given that one sprays so much on the bees and comb. One is left with a shere volume of residue at least several orders of magnitude above the residues left by any other process in beekeeping. Where exactly does it all go? > On the other hand, I am not as sure about Bee Quick. Is it approved > for use in bee hives? In the USA? Yes. See USC 152.8, federal law which directly addresses bee repellents. In the unlikely event that "non-contact exposure" becomes a spill into honey, everything is FDA food-grade (USP) and all ingreidients are listed in the FDA's "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS) list, honored in civilized countries planetwide. > Elsewhere? Also yes. Everywhere on the planet except for, umm... Canada. :) Ooops! I forgot New Zealand, who decided to write regulations to specifically apply to Bee-Quick, as they discovered that their existing regulations did not allow them to regulate Bee-Quick as much as they wanted. The importer is slogging through the process with New Zealand's MAF on this, but everyone is being cooperative, and I have not yet had to break up any fistfights. > Last I heard from our co-op was that we are not to use BeeQuick > or be at risk of having our honey rejected, You mean Bee-Maid? The folks who asked for an exclusive distribution agreement for all of Canada two weeks after putting their membership on notice to not buy a product that I had already ordered my dealers and distributors to not sell to anyone in Canada? Those guys? Methinks that if I violated US law (the Robinson-Patman Act) and gave Bee-Maid "an exclusive", I would suddenly find that the current bureaucratic barriers to selling to Canada would disappear in a cloud of greasy black smoke. Where I come from, we call this sort of negotiation approach "racketeering", and send people to jail for indulging in such business practices, but perhaps Canadian laws are different. :) > and that butyric anhydride is the only chemical permitted for honey > removal use in Canada. Maybe that has changed? This has not changed, despite intensive attempts to work with Health Canada's PMRA group. The PMRA group is being intransigent, having done nothing but be non-responsive to specific questions about both process and requirements. So far, we have been able to gain an admission that butyric was "approved" without any studies or data, apparently simply at the casual request of "the Canadian beekeeping industry". Requests for documents related to exactly where, when, how, and why butyric was "approved", in an attempt to voluntarily offer identical documentation and data for Bee-Quick has resulted in excuses slightly less creative than "my dog ate my homework". We have better things to do with our time and money, so we have left it to the bee supply houses in Canada (both FW Jones and Benson's have expressed interest) to work on this issue with the appropriate ministers, as the lower-level bureaucrats appear unwilling to give equal treatment to butyric and non-butyric repellents, or may be unwilling to give equal treatment to Canadian and non-Canadian products. We have been told by some that working with individual provinces is a legitimate way to "work around" foot-dragging by the Canadian federal government, but we are not Canadian citizens, so we must leave this to the dealers that have expressed interest in selling Bee-Quick and/or the Canadian beekeepers who have asked us why our dealers won't accept orders from Canadians. A less charitable corporation would file suit against Canada under NAFTA Chapter 11 and be awarded all of the profits that MIGHT have been made since 2001 in a slam-dunk example of suing over arbitrary non-tariff barriers to trade. Lucky for Canada my firm policy is to stay away from the courthouse, and that Canada is simply not a big enough market to be worth the bother of paying my henchmen to do what I would rather not. Don't think that I don't love Bee-Maid. I do love them dearly. Their honey is the bulk of the low-end grocery-store honey sold around here, and this honey (heated to within a inch of its life, filtered almost as much as if they were buying Chinese honey, and blended to the point of blandness by experts in covering up the "flavor profile" of canola honey), makes selling my honey simple. I merely offer customers a taste of Bee-Maid's, and mine. Thanks, Bee-Maid! :) > Beyond that, it seems to me that we are in a grey area that is subject > to the whims and ad hoc judgements of various inspection and enforcement > agencies. Only if one is willing to tolerate such ad-hoc treatment. Perhaps if a clear and compelling reason for "approval" is presented that satisfies Canadian self-interest, someone in Canada will then decide to honor the NAFTA agreement, and bring their environmental and health regulations as they apply to beekeeping into compliance with the existing regulations of other NAFTA members. But I doubt it. No one admits that NAFTA exists when they are "buying", everyone pounds it on the table only when they are "selling". jim ("Coup d'etat? No, I offered you a CUP of TEA!") :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::