Alternatives to burning

[tristan]

..........
I hear on the news that there are about 250,000 less hives in New Zealand than there were two years ago which I guess means that there are about 1 million boxes of frames kicking around they will need to be dealt with. A percentage of this gear will be infected and most of the rest will be of uncertain origins especially in a few years . Using someone else's old gear from the back of a shed is one of the surest ways to pick up disease that I know. I wonder if anybody has any plans for those million boxes.

thats the thing of big concern.
eg the lads found someone that had sold off half their hives, and let the rest die. which means those around them end up with mite/afb issues to deal with.
some may remember the issue we had years back with someone dumping hives over the fence and they all died from afb. 4 years later that person sold a heap of bee gear on TM but no bases or lids (guess what did not get burnt).
infected gear sits around in sheds for a very very long time. also it can get left on properties for new owners to deal with who might just take it to the dump.

 

[Maggie]

Not all the gear of 250,000 hives will be sitting in apiaries abandoned. Some commercial beekeepers won't be making up the winter dead outs, because there's really no use in producing a product that you can't sell. Therefore there is gear being stored by commercial beekeepers in the hope that if the price increases so will their hive numbers.

Although I am aware that in some parts of the country there are unregistered hives/sites, that will have AFB. I am also aware in some parts of the country AFB is minimal.

The 250,000 less hives will also mean that the MA is taking substantially less in colony levies.

 

[Annika]

Slowly melting down the plastic frames.? Would a heat, steam, or bleach soak or wax dip work? . Never consider the burning. Might go back to wood. Hmmm food for thought

 

[Alastair]

Hi Anika and welcome .

Far as AFB goes anyway, the only treatment allowed by law is to burn the gear. Unless on your DECA you have an exemption to allow hot wax dipping, but that is only for woodware, would not work on plastic frames.