Saturday, August 2, 2008

ApiLifeVar - organics all the way !!

Last week at the monthly meeting of my local Bee Club ,we had a very inspirational speaker - Reuban Stanley is his name and his passion is ApiLifeVar, an organic treatment for varroa mites.

Reuban and his lovely Swiss wife Anne drove over from Rotorua about an hour away, and kept us all entertained for nearly 2 hours. First we had a great power-point display of the photos they had taken on his beekeeping adventures around the world, starting with keeping 80 hives in Switzerland and continuing into Asia with the promotion and selling of ApiLifeVar.

ApiLifeVar, to quote the pamphlet, is based on essential oils - Thymol,Eucalyptus,Menthol and Camphor, absorbed on an inert medium, is the organic solution for the treatment of varroasis in bees and against tracheal mite. After listening to Reuban`s very informative and interesting talk, I for one will be using this treatment in my hives this coming spring - surely it is so much better for my bees not to put any sort of chemicals that are going to have bad affects on them eventually, into their living space ??

Reuban is the NZ rep for this product, which is manufactured in Italy and exported to many other countries. It was so refreshing to listen to another point of view, even the critics had to admit that they were interested !

The meeting concluded with refreshments and a delicious honey and lemon cake made by Sandy - a pleasent end to a very good night ..

1 comment:

Nan said...

I'm going to share this with the beekeeper from whom we buy our honey. I wonder if he has heard of it. thanks.