Can someone please explain the Foundationless hype to me?

[deknow]

I'm happy to assume that sergey's math is correct...but he is still basing everything on an assumption of a complete.layer of wax of a given thickness.....for a.product that I don't believe.he has ever seen.
I know.from.experience that comb is.made.up.of.much less.wax.than it seems.like it should be (try melting a.full foundationless.comb and see how little wax.is.in the puddle at the end, but even knowing this, I don't find it believable tha if there is 40g of wax in the cell walls (measured by sol) , that there is 11g (more than 25% of the total weight of the drawn out cell walls) coated on the frame.
people, this.is.a.very thin spray....a spattering. There is not 11g of wax in the coating, and it really doesn't matterhow many phds you hav e or how muchur math you do....if you base your work on made up numbers, the results.are.made up.
Deknow

[SantaFeBeek]

My conclusion is that much more study has to be done in order to make any real conclusions.

I think it is premature to make conclusions about whether these chemicals are affecting the bees or whether heavy metal bioaccumulation in your body will have any long term affect. When you develop some horrible disease later in life, which I truly hope that you don't, it may be directly attibutable to heavy metals. CCD has risen in direct correlation to usage of a variety of chemicals in agriculture. To assume that directly putting wax with these chemicals into hives is not affecting bees based on your particular situation is a bit of a reach. It's akin to the 100-year old smoker saying, "Smoking doesn't hurt anyone. I've been smoking for 80-years and look at me." The effects of many of these chemicals is "sub-lethal" and not easily detected by the standard observer.

Has anyone seen any studies regarding transfer coefficients of these chemicals from wax into honey? That would be interesting!

By all means, do what works for you, but there ought to be some consideration by a community for long-term effects to the community (the earth and all that inhabit it) in general of continuing usage of these toxic chemicals.

My conclusion, as usual, is that we don't know as much as we assume that we do.

[AJ Boss]

Has anyone seen any studies regarding transfer coefficients of these chemicals from wax into honey? That would be interesting!

This is what i want to know?

[Solomon Parker]

there is 40g of wax in the cell walls (measured by sol)

I should clarify, I did actually measure this yesterday right before I posted it. I measured a brand new empty frame and one that had been recently extracted after being filled with honey. The wax is brand new and white, no cocoons. I have two others being babysat in a hive, maybe this evening, I will weigh those as well to get an average. Hopefully there isn't any honey in them.

[SantaFeBeek]

Deknow, by adamantly stating that "[t]here is not 11 g of wax in the coating" without the actual data, you are doing the same thing you are railing at Sergey about. You are stating your opinion as fact.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with some of your arguments and I agree that these calculations are not accurate without the actual data, but in lieu of actual data, assumptions must be made and I think sergey's line of developing his assumption is on target and is probably within reason. The only way to actually know is to get real data from the manufacturer. Arguing back and forth about something that can't be proved one way or the other is a bit futile until the real data is acquired.

[Solomon Parker]

Does somebody want to test my wax? I'd be happy to scrape this beautiful new comb off and send it somewhere.

[SantaFeBeek]

I should clarify, I did actually measure this yesterday right before I posted it. I measured a brand new empty frame and one that had been recently extracted after being filled with honey. The wax is brand new and white, no cocoons. I have two others being babysat in a hive, maybe this evening, I will weigh those as well to get an average. Hopefully there isn't any honey in them.

Just curious if there was any honey residue left after extraction that might have contributed to the weight. Doesn't take much to make a gram or two or more.

[SantaFeBeek]

Does somebody want to test my wax? I'd be happy to scrape this beautiful new comb off and send it somewhere.

Anybody got a spare $1500 or so???

[Solomon Parker]

The comb had no honey left in it, it had been left out to be scavenged by the bees. The comb is approximately the depth of a brood cell minus the capping. Small cell of course.

[SantaFeBeek]

The comb had no honey left in it, it had been left out to be scavenged by the bees. The comb is approximately the depth of a brood cell minus the capping. Small cell of course.

Interesting! Thanks for making the measurement.

My thinking is that the bees would be more efficient with wax than human/mechanical application could be, so I'm not sure that there could be any direct correlation of the mass of drawn comb to the mass of sprayed on wax coating. I think that Sergey's estimate of 0.1 mm is a decent guess.

[Solomon Parker]

Even if it were that much, that's still about one sixth the weight of a sheet of foundation which is what I've actually been using. There were only a handful of plastic frames in use before this year. Now there are well more than a hundred.

[SantaFeBeek]

Even if it were that much, that's still about one sixth the weight of a sheet of foundation which is what I've actually been using. There were only a handful of plastic frames in use before this year. Now there are well more than a hundred.

There is no doubt that there is less wax on a coated plastic foundation than on pure wax foundation. I agree with you 100% on that.

[Solomon Parker]

What I'm saying is that if the spray on a PF-120 is what y'all are arguing over, you're missing the whole sheet of foundation I've been using this whole time. Surely if this were a problem it would have cropped up by now. I have probably four or five hundred sheets of it in use as we speak.

If the sky is falling, why isn't it even raining here?

[SantaFeBeek]

I'm not arguing about one or the other. I just think that introducing anything more than nothing (whether it is pure wax foundation or coated plastic) that contains possibly toxic chemicals in it into a hive that doesn't necessarily need it is probably not the best thing to do for the bees. It may be better for the humans who are managing the bees, but it is a choice, not a necessity.

[Solomon Parker]

Fair enough, but it's not you that has the loudest voice, it's the other guy.

At what point is perfect the enemy of more than adequate? In this case, we cannot achieve perfect.

[SantaFeBeek]

I agree. There are very few absolutes in this world.

[Barry]

In this case, we cannot achieve perfect.

I bet you could. Call the manufacturer and ask for the number.

[Solomon Parker]

Dee Lusby claimed reductions in pesticide using sunlight to photo-degrade the chemicals. What does she sell wax for?

[WLC]

Dean:

I scraped off the 'wax sputter' from a strip along the edges of a plastic foundation sheet (1 side only). It came in at about 0.02 grams. I'd estimate that it's a 20th the area of 1 side of plastic foundation sheet.

So say about 0.4 grams of wax per side or between .5 and 1 gram per sheet of plastic foundation.

So, at 12.4ug mixed pesticide per gram of wax...

You can take it from there.

My point in using ranges is that the research itself has shown that the LD50s for specific pesticides form ranges due to synergistic effects with other contaminants (or even pathogens).

By the way, I have seen LD50s reported in the 1 ng/bee range and below, although the listed LD50 is orders of magnitude higher. That's the issue, the LD50s form a range at different orders of magnitude depending on who is doing the testing.

So, let's say 5 to 10 ug mixed pesticide per sheet of waxed plastic foundation. We can always estimate how many bees live on a frame, right?

Sol:

Now you're thinking outside the box. How does one decontaminate wax?

[SantaFeBeek]

"So, let's say 5 to 10 ug mixed pesticide per sheet of waxed plastic foundation. We can always estimate how many bees live on a frame, right?"

The number that we don't know is the availability of the contaminants in the wax to the bees. We need a study on the bioavailability of these contaminants to the bees. If the contaminants are highly sorbed to the wax, the bees can likely only access a small portion of them. The LD50 range for oral intake would only be comparable if you know that ratio.

Anyone seen partitioning coefficients for contaminants between wax and air, or wax and honey, wax and pollen, etc??