Electrified oxygen | Ozone is already used 
in water treatment and to control disease in potatoes
MARKHAM, Ont. — Ozone sterilization may be coming to North America’s honey industry, thanks to a Burlington, Ont., company, an Ontario beekeeper and the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association’s technology transfer team.
“When we get this finished, it will be groundbreaking work,” said Jim Simpson with Simpson Environmental.
He said ozone sterilization is already widely used in water treatment systems, and he believes the honey industry can use it to sterilize boxes, frames and honeycombs to kill insect and disease pests and reduce pesticide residues.
Simpson, working with the tech team and Mike Parker of Parker-Bee Apiaries at Beamsville, Ont., converted a refrigerated trailer into a mobile ozone treatment unit.
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He said ozone is electrified oxygen that contains a third oxygen molecule.
Simpson introduces the gas at the top of the sealed trailer because it’s heavier than air. It’s circulated through stacked hive equipment, and the strong oxidizing action of the ozone provides the sterilization action.
The prototype that’s been developed is a 53-foot unit, with a 43-foot sterilization chamber and a10-foot control room.
Building in safety protocols was a key consideration. Ozone occurs naturally in nature — it can be smelled after a lightening strike — but it’s toxic to humans in higher levels.
“The dosage level we apply to the combs is significant. We use levels that measure in thousands of parts per million,” Simpson said.
Les Eccles of the OBA’s tech transfer team said ozone sterilization is used to control disease in stored potatoes.
Additional research is to be conducted this summer to fine tune ozone concentration, time of treatment, temperature and humidity.
He hopes to have a commercial system in place by next fall so beekeepers can treat equipment following the extraction of honey.
Simpson, Eccles and Parker-Bee Apiaries are building on research conducted by Rosalind James from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pollinating Insects Research Unit in Utah.
James first had success using ozone to manage insect pests and disease in hive equipment, including the wax moth, the bacterium that causes American foulbrood and the fungus that causes chalk brood.
However, it’s more difficult dealing with pesticides, including those used by beekeepers to control mites.
“In our experiments, ozone was not very effective in eliminating pesticides in old comb but occurred more readily with new comb,” James and her colleagues wrote in a paper published by the Journal of Agricultural Science last year.
“One approach that beekeepers could take to prevent the buildup of pesticide residues in honeycomb is to start with new comb, treat it with ozone annually and replace their combs more often than is common in the U.S and Canada … perhaps every few years rather than reusing it for decades.”
Eccles said ozone treatment is effective against the active ingredients in Checkmite and Apistan Strips, but isn’t useful for neonicotinoid insecticides. These do not build up in wax but are a concern in honey and pollen, he said.
April Parker of Parker-Bee said there’s been dramatic late fall bee kills this year at the family business, which could be related to the bees consuming stored corn pollen contaminated with insecticides.
