[Aurora]

Hey gang, Joe here from Aurora Apiaries in B.C., Canada. In the spring we had a couple hives turn up mites so we treated instantly with Apivar. The main ingredient is Amitraz 3.33% so we wanted to know how much of the wax and honey was tainted and for how long. Apivar says not to use during a honey flow and / or with a honey super on so our main concern was that the bees will move their own honey reserves from a brood super into a honey super when you put it on and taint the new honey. We did NOT want to waste this awesome nectar flow we got a couple weeks ago so I went on the hunt for info. Here's the abstract for the Degradation of Amitraz from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf010787s "Amitraz degrades after 1 DAY in BEESWAX and 10 DAYS in HONEY." Obviously AFTER you stop treatment. We also got in touch with some old friends at Bee-Maid (a honey co-op) in Alberta and they hooked us up with the provincial inspector and I'm quoting loosely... "What's acceptable is that chemical in the 100 ppB (parts per billion) range and what we're talking about now is in the 1 to 2 ppB range." I did note that the abstract i linked to above mentioned that there is something called DMF left behind after degradation and I've been on the hunt for info on that. Also, I read some posts on people using Taktic(sp?) at around 12.5% so please do the math and know that a higher concentration will take longer to degrade. Hope this helps. Joe

 

[Aurora]

Thanks honeyshack. We haven't fed in a long time and they've got gorgeous storage around the brood. Thanks for the reminder re: not extracting brood supers. I hope people aren't doing that as it is. We're relieved that the provincial inspector relayed the info too as we're getting a good nectar flow now. How are things in MB?