diatomaceous earth and the sugar shake

[BlueEggFarmer]

This is just me thinking out loud.

Here on the farm, as an organic pesticide, I use food grade diatomaceous earth.
Diatomaceous earth is a mined product of fossilized shell animal that is put into our food in tiny amounts all the time without being labeled at all. Flour, sugar and salt are a few of the items that it is in.
It is there to keep the products from absorbing humidity and clumping so that the products continue to flowing smoothly.
As an added benefit it can also kill bugs. The spiny microscopic bits are said to cut up the bugs and cause them to dehydrate to death.
I put alittle bit of the food grade diatomaceous earth in our animal feed to keep parasites down in the poultry, horses, sheep and pig,to lower the amount of flies coming from manure , and to sprinkle around the  garden to keep pests down. It has worked wonders for us.
This year since I have bees now I have avoided sprinkling the diatomaceous earth on any of the flowering vegetables so as not to kill the bees.
Today I was just going through the forum and came across the sugar shake afew times with folks checking for or getting rid of mites.
Now not to cause panic or trouble, I was wondering how many folks here who do the sugar shake later had bee population numbers dropping or hives dying off?
I doubt the diatomaceous earth would cause problems when feeding syrup, I have notice that when I make syrup in a soup pot and let it cool that there is always alittle bit of "stuff" at the bottom of the pan that did not dissolve so I just pour that away. Maybe others do to.
Anyway,
My hypothesis today is that diatomaceous earth in sugar might be hurting the bee populations and that perhaps real tests need to conducted.

[SystemShark]

 to treat mites isn't there some grease/sugar combo patty. I remember reading about it somewhere but its supposed to do that exact thing - clog their trachea to kill them through dehydration but its to small to actually hurt the bees.

Sorry I'm new and don't have experience with anything really yet just thought I'd bring it up. I think your safe - the beekeepers I've met use store bought bags of sugar and mix it with water for their feed and I've never heard of any problems with it - again I'm new so its probably not that helpful to ya.

[doak]

First off the grease patties are for Trac. mites.

Next, I would think if there is dia. earth in powdered sugar, it would not be in amounts large enough to hurt the bees.

If one is going to try to go total organic, then they shouldn't use anything that is comerically processed.

We are a long ways from a perfect world.
Good luck and God Bless
doak

[rdy-b]

Are you talking about bees beieing hurt by dusting? or are you talking about what would happen if you added it to sugar and then dusted? sugar is one of the only things you can dust with with out hurting the BROOD LARVAE. people have tried diatomaceous earth they have tried corn meal they have tried garlic they have tried cinnamon and many others the grooming of the bees still is affective but any thing other than powdered sugar hurts or kills brood larvae.IF you are saying that they already put it in my sugar and dont tell me then i have no idea what you are talking about :) RDY-B

[BlueEggFarmer]

yes it was my thought that since DE is being added to sugar without being listed on the ingredients list, that perhaps it was hurting the bees. How much is going into the sugar? I do not know. How much or little does it take to hurt bees? again I do not know. This might make for an interesting experiment since many people shake sugar onto their bees.

[Erik T]

Where did this information about DE in sugar come from?  The FDA requires that all ingredients be labeled.  DE is scary stuff and can cause silicosis.

[randydrivesabus]

i'm with erik on this....can you show us something that indicates what you say is true?

[Mici]

i think DE is put only into the powdered sugar, if you buy crystalized sugar and grind it, i think it's free of this DE.
plus...someone once mentioned he noticed his powdered sugar contains 0.05% (or something like that) of some salt, it's probably the same thing.

[Erik T]

I don't buy it.  If DE was an ingredient in Powdered Sugar there would be a whole lot of dead bakers not to mention powdered doughnut eaters.

I know DE is used as a filter media during refinement of sugar.    This doesn't mean the end product contains DE.  If it did, the FDA would probably classify the product as adulterated and unfit for human consumption.

[Zoot]

Eric T,
Silicosis is undeed a horrible disease. A potter ( a high risk group) aquaintance of mine died from it a few years ago. But one has to be exposed to fairly high concetrations of silica based material on a regular basis to be in danger, probably much higher than the amounts I've heard are in powdered sugar.

Another fascinating "at risk" group were the gun flint knappers of northern England who worked in airless little sheds  from the 17th century to the early 20th century, many of whom died at young ages from what we now know as silicosis.

[Erik T]

I guess I'm going to have to back pedal on this issue...

Apparently, diatomaceous earth goes by another name, 'silicon dioxide'  which can be used as an anti-caking agent.   There are two main classifications,  amorphous and crystalline silica.  Crystalline is the dangerous one.  Food grade silicon dioxide, amorphous, contains very little crystalline silica.

Some powdered sugar does list this as an ingredient albeit a very minor one, e.g. less than 2%.  The Walmart powdered sugar I have contains cornstarch instead of silicon dioxide as an anti-caking agent.

I doubt the quantities involved would prove harmful to bees.

[BenC]

I thought the anti-caking agent in powdered sugar was cornstarch.  Granulated sugar should be only that- ganulated sugar.  My understanding is that if you see dust when you dump a sack, it's just sugar crystals that have rubbed each other into dust.  Occasionally I'll pour a bag and see something that looks like a little black clinker or burnt sugar, sometimes see a thing that looks like little limestones too, I always figured there was a sugar silo somewhere and a front-end loader was scraping the ground or something :?
     BlueEggFarmer, what does the stuff in your sugar syrup pan look like?  Is it possible something is precipitating out of your water? 

[BlueEggFarmer]

     BlueEggFarmer, what does the stuff in your sugar syrup pan look like?  Is it possible something is precipitating out of your water? 

Tiny white, hard grains.
Possible, very possible. City water has all kinds of chemical added to it.  These too might be the a source of bee problems.