BEES AND WHITE LEAD.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18508, 9 October 1925, Page 12

BEES AND WHITE LEAD.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PaESS." Sir, —I was in the country a few days ago at a bee farm, and was much concerned with what I consider a very dangerous practice, and that is painting the hives with white lead painU All hives are painted white. Now what takes place is this: after about one year the white lead paint chalks or lxjwders or oxidises. The bees crawl over the outside of the hives and they must have carried some of the powder cd lead into the hives and on to the honey. The attendant's fingers were well powdered in handling the hive boxes. Now this lead in this state is a deadly poison. I have heard, and often read, of people becoming ill after eating honey. Last year, or at any rate, very recently, the bees were afflicted with a form r,f paralysis. May not this be the cause? Some*time ago I read of a mysterious illness affecting children somewhere in Australia so seriously that some died and others were continually becoming ill. At last the Government set up a Commission of Enquiry, and this is what they found: That many houses had wide verandahs with a handrail from post to post, all painted with white lead paint that had become powdered. The; children, in playing, made frequent use of this rail and powdered their fingers, and without washing ate food and fruit, etc., hence (he trouble. Even when lead paint has "been through fire and well burnt, it is still dangerous. I lost*a lot of fowls through their at paint ashes. Now the remedy for the bees i 3 to paint with oxide of iron paint, or some non-poisonous paint.—Yours, etc GEORGE A. MAZEY. "' Christchurch, October otn.