Hi Peoples,
I thought I would share with you how AFB infected hives are delt with here in Australia. We are a required to send or equipment minus bees to a facility that treat the effected material with Gamma Irradiation. The official term used and quoting from and Australian Agnote “Cobalt 60 Gamma Irradiationâ€. I know this sounds all High Tech and out of reach of most beekeepers but basically the facility we Victorian beekeepers use is a sterilization plant mostly sterilizing hospital equipment. Even with the associated cost of transporting and the actual irradiation, it is still extremely cost effective. I am lead to believe that even wax combs are safe to use after being sterilized but you will have to check that out for yourselves. Now Victoria, Australia has approx. 4 million people with one of these plants. So I would imagine the U.S would be peppered with these plants. Check it out, this is their web site www.steritech.com.au
Cheers
Mark
Hi there Mark, finally I've found another aussie on the fourm!
I picked up some hive components for free, so I'm going to get them irradiated. I think its going to cost about $17 for per 3 box hive. The cost is on dimesions not weight. So that's 3 full depth 8 frame langstroth's, 24 frames, a bottom board and a migratory cover.
That's reasonable. :lol:
Well here's a little about Irrdatiation I've just dug up:
New South Wales Department of Agriculture has this to say:
http://www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/honeybees/dai-035.pdf?MIvalObj=6310&doctype=document&MItypeObj=&name=/dai-035.pdf
The Deparment of Sustainability and Environment (Victoria) has this to say:
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/nreninf.nsf/childdocs/-89E7A8DAFEA417624A2568B30004C26A-C6A014FC88F23F19CA256BC700811628-26181E79F5B05B3F4A256DEA0027399A-5897CEEA0B007B82CA256D33001A82DD?open
Scroll down to the bit about called 'clean up of disease outbreaks'.
A quote from Beekeeper's Association of the ACT:
QuoteWe will send a load of hives to Steritech for irradiation early in March. Transport cost depends on the number of hives sent and the last load was $5.00 per hive. The current cost of irradiation is $22 for a triple and $15.40 for a double. The total weight of each unit must be less than 25 kilograms and they must be double wrapped and double emlocked. NSW Agriculture has an Agnote detailing the wrapping required.