From: "Dave Cushman" <dave.cushman@lineone.net>
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 12:15:53 -0000
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: clean wax for organic production

Hi all

Dee talks about adding propolis to wax...

> Could it help our bees from getting sick if they work it in their mandibles?

The smallest particles of propolis would be totally encapsulated in wax and
would remain so during rework by mandibles.

Medium sized particles may be cut or squashed by mandibular action. Any
cutting would expose the propolis and the bee would recognise this as a
foreign substance (propolis is not involved in normal wax building) if the
bee has a foreign substance it can choose to accept or reject it. There are
instances of bees gathering pitch and tarmacadam from roads in hot weather,
which they incorporate into comb so I would suspect that if the propolis was
suitably maleable it would be incorporated but if it was not of the correct
consistancy the bee would discard it.

Large particles would be treated much the same as medium ones but I would
expect that a larger proportion would be rejected compared to medium sized.

Propolis has antiseptic properties but whether the increased exposure that
the bees would get by Dee's method would decrease any disease would need to
be researched. My first thoughts are that even without deliberate admixture
of propolis the hive environment is adequately aseptic... A spoonfull of
antiseptic in a bucket of water is just as effective as two spoonfulls.

Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY