Around this time last year I had very high loses N C I think, and stacked the brood boxes with frames, 8 in total with2 trays of glacial acetic acid around a litre worth. The point is I'm not convinced it will have reached every crevice and I won't use them again until they are boiled or scorched, bit of a waste of time really now I reflect on it.
Acetic acid is very effective against both types of nosema, but N Ceranae is particularly susceptible.
The fumes are heavier than air so it is best to put it at the top of any stack.
Freezing is also effective at getting rid of nosema spores.
I think it was Randy Oliver who pointed out that leaving equipment out in the freezing cold for a month is very effective as well.
he has a huge amount of info here.
Perhaps this is a good time for me to pipe up and declare that those of you interested in recycling frames will have the possibility of using a new facility in the Blairgowrie area. The idea is that a low-cost service will permit beekeepers to recycle their frames in a way that ensures freedom from active bee pathogens. For cross-wired frames an inexpensive re-waxing service will also be on offer. We will have the equipment to recover the greatest amount of wax from comb, and it is well known that the process leaves the wax safe to use without worry of active pathogens in the foundation. Ideal for larger-scale beekeepers and anyone who can club together (eg via a local association) to take a decent batch to the plant. Details later ... last week we interviewed for a person to drive a lot of this forward.
Gavin
Sounds good Gavin, that was my other option I suppose, I know thornes sell a steam contraption for for a fairly hefty price, but was considering whether a steam wallpaper stripper would generate hot enough steam to consider frames "sterilised" or just cleaned of wax. While the solar extractor is good for chucking in the odd comb here and there, it's simply not big enough to cope with combs in any volume.
Do you happen to know how hot you'd need to get steam to consider the frames free from common lurgy?
Sterilised is a tall order. Some viruses and some bacterial spores will even survive 20 min at 120C in an autoclave (although most wont!). For your purposes I would imagine that destroying most viruses, chalkbrood and Nosema spores is all you need and a good, penetrating blast of steam may achieve that. EFB cells live for years on comb. However, unlike AFB spores, they are not *that* robust so what you propose should reduce the number of any that have strayed onto your comb and so reduce the chances of a symptomatic infection getting underway. Given that you've seen EFB locally and are a bright lad you will not have any serious cases of EFB or AFB amongst your frames - so knocking back common pathogens will be a great help and 100% efficacy isn't really needed given that the pathogens you will have are abundant and widespread anyway. I'd have thought.
The planned plant will use steam jets to melt out comb, boiling caustic soda baths to render the woodwork non-infective, and rinses to remove the caustic. The woodware going through that comes out totally clean, and that freedom from deposits as well as the effect of the caustic on pathogens combine to give safe, clean, recycled frames.
Last edited by gavin; 14-03-2012 at 09:52 PM.
Great link thanks Jon , feel a bit more confident in the acetic acid treatment, also save me scorching 100 frames. I've already made up the thymol mix for start of year.
I think for frame re-use then that's probably good enough If I thought I had either FB I'd be using those frames for firelighters if that decision hadn't already been made for me.
For my own use and being able to be reasonably confident that chalkbrood and Nosema especially are gone will do me. I'm not concerned about the wax, only cappings wax goes back into hives/foundation and if I can use steam them I'm less concerned about sticking frames of brood in the thing
I'm going to cost up a DIY version and see how that compares to what Thornes are offering.
I use the cold weather as my "treatment" for wax moth. All the supers get stacked on sealed floors and after one stack got blown over this winter will be strapped down in futureOriginally Posted by Jon
Trouble is we have not had any cold weather this winter. Only a couple of nights below zero.
Last year we had a week of temperatures down to -12 every night.
Gavin,
I have seen a similar setup in Denmark where they render the wax with steam then clean the frames with boiling caustic soda. The frames came out like new. This will be a great facility for beekeepers. In Denmark they also used the wax to make their own foundation and sold back to the beekeepers.
Anybody got any views on using Virkon for sterilising the frames after scraping off the wax?
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