From: Pav <bobhog@pin.co.nz>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 20:33:54 +1200
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Clean wax for Organic Production?

Hi folk, catching up on old emails...

At 7/03/01 09:33:00, Dee wrote:

[regarding sun bleaching/purifying wax]
>Solar wax melters won't work. The glass blocks the UV
>light needed to photodegradate the wax.

Have to contradict here.

UV penetrates glass close to 100%

Plastics however absorb (therefore do not transmit) UV, and are degraded by it.

Anyone wearing plastic-lenses spectacles has the benefit of a UV block, even without needing a tint (and so may be delaying getting cataracts as we all inevitably do from sun UV if we live long enough). Glass lenses have no such benefit unless coated.

On a different branch of this same thread, Dee seems to be giving Trevor the 3rd degree about Aussie wax. Gotta pipe up in support of me Oz neighbour (uncharacteristic for a Kiwi...). To my knowledge (as Trevor had already mentioned but seems to have been lost in the subsequent detail), Oz honeys mostly come from native trees (as is also the case (though dare i say to a lesser degree?) here in New Zealand - different tree species though - NZ and Oz maybe be neighbours but there's still the world of difference - 'cept Tazzy[mania] maybe) and as such hives for honey are mostly in remote, natural (read: "no chemicals used") environments. Also being in the sparsely populated oceanic southern hemisphere the general enviromental contaminant level is low (no acid rain here - i recall seeing an article that suggested a little acid rain would actually be beneficial to NZ's usually alkali soils...), and being 'westernised' nations (despite being hard up against the EASTERN edge of the
international date-line - they put a kink in the line to go around NZ's Chatham Islands) there are strict regulations as to what chemicals ARE used anyway (no DDT downunder). So while the purists will still find fault after interrogation, i would be very happy to use Aussie wax in my hives, and would regard it as 'clean': some would say cleaner than NZ's (but they'd be wrong of course).

-Pav, living in a glasses house...

__________________________________
(\ Pav BobHog@pin.co.nz
{|||8- Ahaura, New Zealand
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