Australian's Dealing with AFB

[Markinaust]

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 Irradiation�. 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

[Yarra_Valley]

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.  

[Yarra_Valley]

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:

We 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.