# Homemade HBH feeding stimulant



## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

I've seen the recipe for a homemade, imitation replacement for Honey-B-Healthy. It's the one with five cups of water, five cups of sugar and 15 drops each of Lemongrass Oil and Spearmint oil.

This "concentrate" is then further diluted by adding one teaspoon of this mix into one quart of feeding syrup.

At this rate, the concentration of essential oils is next to imaginary. There's just no way there's enough EO to do any good. Absolutely NO WAY! I won't bore you with the math but the level of Lemongrass oil and Spearmint oil is next to nothing.

Has anyone seen any other research or experimentation into making a replacement feed stimulant using Lemongrass Oil and Spearmint Oil?

Has anyone figured out just how much actual EO is in each teaspoon of the commercially prepared, brand name Honey-B-Healthy? The directions suggest adding 1 teaspoon of HBH per quart of syrup. But just how much EO is in each teaspoon and how much is the "filler" or "carrier" (water and sucrose)?

Grant
Jackson, MO


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

What else do people call this stuff you made? Since, if it is home made, it isn't HBH, is it?


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_There's just no way there's enough EO to do any good. Absolutely NO WAY! I won't bore you with the math _

I suspect the bees aren't using the same math that you are.

Do you also say there is absolutely no way that bees can smell certain odors of such low concentrations that they are next to imaginary? Don't underestimate the power of a nose, especially a bee nose.

You may not "smell" any noticeable odor of human pheromones, but your brain reacts to what your nose picks up.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

I suspect that's a little thinner than commercial HBH, but EO's are powerful stuff. More than a couple drops of most of them can get toxic to a human real quick--when you compare a human's water volume to 5 cups, you still end up with a pretty strong mix.

We're not talking extracts here, where you sit a plant in alcohol and let the stuff leach out for a bit. It generally takes POUNDS of dried plant material to make an oz of essential oil--its the distilled essence of the plant's most potent chemicals.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

Not sure were you are getting your formula from. Check out feed recipes in the commercial section. That one I know works. You don't need much EO to be effective. You have to remember who is taking this...they have tiny bodies so a micro amount is effective with them.


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## Brent Bean (Jun 30, 2005)

The mixture you mentioned will still smell very strong. And persist for quit a while, on anything that comes in contact with it. Like the kitchen counter your hands or clothing. Since honeybees smell many times better than a dog it must seem quit strong to them.


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## G B (Nov 6, 2009)

I have been using the 2 quarts of sugar and 2 quarts of sugar along with the appropriate amount of E-O that alpha has posted before. I have been feeding it as well as spraying it directely onto the combs on a few hives that didnt seem to bee growing as fast as the others. His recipe does seem to be thinner than the store bought HBH. anyway I will continue to use it.


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## Onehorse (Jan 10, 2010)

I haven't used the formula that you posted, but a formula similiar to it, 4 drops to 4 cups of H20, blended, then 1 cup of that mixture to 1 gallon of syrup and it does work and stinks too.


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## Delta Bay (Dec 4, 2009)

> Has anyone figured out just how much actual EO is in each teaspoon of the commercially prepared, brand name Honey-B-Healthy? The directions suggest adding 1 teaspoon of HBH per quart of syrup. But just how much EO is in each teaspoon and how much is the "filler" or "carrier" (water and sucrose)?


1cc of EO per quart of feed.

Inventors of HBH Jim Amrine, Bob Noel, 


> 1). Syrup: 25 drops (1 cc) of wintergreen or spearmint is added to one pint of honey (or two cups of sugar (about one pound or 453.6 grams)) in a quart jar (0.95 liter); hot water is added to fill the jar. We found that more of the essential oil goes into solution in honey than in sugar syrup; there may be a natural emulsifier in honey that helps essential oils to stay in solution. When making sugar syrup, we found that we must add the oil to the granulated sugar then add the very warm water (not too hot or else the oils will evaporate). We feed the bees as much syrup as they will take; Bob uses 1/2 gallon jars on his entrance feeders. We have had good results with wintergreen, spearmint, rosemary and peppermint oils. We plan to conduct experiments this fall and winter combining the essential oils with fumadil in syrup to see if the treatments are compatible.





> We soon found that essential oils applied to sugar syrups did not mix with the aqueous solutions, so Bob Noel began looking for natural emulsifiers to allow uniform mixing of our selected essential oils in the syrups fed to honey bees. He found that lecithin was a good natural emulsifier. Following two years of field treatments of essential oils to honey bee hives with PMS, we observed that spearmint oil was excellent in reducing the PMS. However, honey bees did not accept the emulsified spearmint oil in 1:1 sugar syrup as well as other essential oils. So, we searched for an additive that would make the spearmint syrup attractive to honey bees. Lemongrass oil proved to be the key. The combination of these two oils with lecithin is the mixture that we now call Honey-B-Healthy�, and it has proved to be very effective at improving the health of the honey bee as well as having several other attributes.


15 drops of each EO is fed in each quart of syrup. One tsp of HBH has 1cc EO.


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

Delta Bay,

Thanks for posting! Great info.

Has anyone done the math to calculate how to make a batch of additive? 

I just counted drops, and 30 drops is about the volume of a scant 1/4 teaspoon. The HBH label has sugar labeled before water, so there's more of it--how 'bout assuming a 2:1 ratio?

So how does this sound:

1/8 cup (2 tbsp) spearmint oil
1/8 cup (2 tbsp) lemongrass oil
1/4 (4 tbsp) cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp emulsifier (haven't used emulsifiers much, not sure how much to add of that)

This should give about 3/4c of stuff, since the sugar dissolves down a bit, or about 20 doses or so. (dose = 1 tsp per quart of feed syrup, as stated above)


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## Delta Bay (Dec 4, 2009)

3/4 cup would give 36 teaspoons. You would need to combine the two EO's to add up to 2.434 tablespoons so that 1cc of EO would be in each tsp. You would also need to make sure the total volume with all ingredients equals 3/4 of a cup. I think?:scratch:


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

Oh, right. 48 tsp in a cup, not 28. :doh: Sorry, not real up on my kitchen measurements--I probably got confused with grams in an oz...

I suppose you could just make up your 2:1 ahead of time, and add 3/4 cup of that, instead of mixing the sugar and water separately.

I did all the 'calculations' based on making 1 cup final solution. It was just the dissolving sugar that made it probably equal 3/4 cup. So 4 tbsp EO should be about right....


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## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

I'm going to back off a little. If I came at this issue looking for something to stimulate feeding or accelerate intake, then I think these few drops of EO per gallon would work out just fine. I need to reclarify my intent.

I believe in Armine and Noel's work and I'm looking for a therapuetic treatment, not just the smell-good attractant. I'm looking for stronger concentrates to add to larger volumes of syrup.

So I'll keep looking and asking. Thanks for all your input.

Grant
Jackson, MO
http://maxhoney.homestead.com


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

Um... I think that's what we've been talking about. The formula we were attempting to work out above adheres to what we know of Amrine and Noel's HBH product, which contains about 1/4 teaspoon of essential oils per teaspoon of liquid. The rest of that stuff you pour out of the HBH bottle is primarily sugar water. Like I said before, essential oils are POWERFUL. You don't need a ton to go a long way! Just because its from a plant does not mean its not as strong as any medication--or poison--out there.

http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa/honeyBhlth.htm

From 1995 until 2000, Amrine & Noel (2001) tested several essential oils *in diluted honey and sugar syrup as feeding additives to honey bees, in order to attempt to control varroa mites, tracheal mites and to reverse the parasitic mite syndrome (PMS) seen in colonies infested with varroa mites*. We found that several essential oils improved the health of the honey bee and reversed the symptoms of PMS. Especially useful were wintergreen, spearmint, patchouli, penny royal, tea tree and melaleuca oils. We decided to use oils and materials listed by the EPA that could be used for pest control activity, but which would not require registration as an acaricide and would be exempt from FIFRA (EPA 1994, EPA 1996). 


Using Honey B Healthy to feed and/or treat honey bees -

We add 1 teaspoonful of HBH (ca 5 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup in order to stimulate brood rearing, pollen collection and to initiate early spring development in honey bee colonies. We start feeding in mid-February and continue until the bees have nectar coming in and they begin to stop feeding on the HBH.

*We add 2 teaspoonfuls of HBH (ca 10 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup in order to improve the health of the colony, in casees of dysentery, PMS, chalk brood or other ailments. The stronger dose of spearmint and lemongrass oils seems to give the honey bee brood and adults greater tolerance or resistance to the ailments. *

We add 4 teaspoonfuls of HBH (ca 20 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup when we introduce queens, treat with formic acid or cause other disruptive disturbances to the hive. This is particularly useful for queen introduction (especially for queens with low genetic relationship as Russian Queens) and for reducing defensive behavior in particularly defensive colonies. We shake or spray syrup onto the brood frames and onto the queen cage before releasing the queen. We seldom lose queens when this method is used. 
We apply some of the HBH syrup to our skin in order to reduce stinging behavior; when the tarsi touch the HBH, the bees fly off instead of stinging. 
We add about 20% of HBH to 85-100 ml of 50% formic acid during fumigation of brood chambers for varroa and tracheal mite control. 
We apply the stronger syrups to two colonies when combining them, in order to reduce defensive behavior of the workers.


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## BarbieandKen (Aug 29, 2009)

Does honey b Healthy only have two essential oils and not much else??


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## Tara (Jun 17, 2010)

From the bottle:

Contains: Sucrose, Water, Spearmint Oil, Lemongrass Oil, Lecithin and Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.


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## Tom Nichols (Jul 29, 2010)

Well written Delta Bay, I have a 50gal plastic tank in the back of my truck with approx a 2:1 mix. I would like to add some semblence of an HBH formula to it, but at the rates you guys are talking about it would cost a fortune in EO's.. I have 5oz bottles of peppermint, spearmint, lemongrass,patchouli, tea tree. And a 16oz bag of granulated lecithin. I was thinking of mixing all of it in a large stock pot with hot water, and after emulsifing it, just add the whole pot to my 50gal tank....your thought please?


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## ChristopherA (Jul 20, 2010)

I use the home mix that was originally posted.

I do have to say that the home mix stimulates the bees on a huge scale. I was making the first batch and the bees start to gather at my back door. When you go to feed it you have to be quick because the bees will start robbing and with in minutes will get into the top hive feeders and drowned.

It might not be HBH (which I do feed too), however it does help stimulate the bees to take te sugar/water on a much larger scale than normal. Does it have the same benifits as HBH I can not say. However EO are used for natural defense of pest in the hive. I use the home mix through out the year during and it seems to work well and cheaper than buying the HBH. 

If you look at the make-up of HBH there is not that much difference.

A little OE goes a long way. If you do feed the mix staight without diluting it, it will kill your bees. Just a warning, and like I posted earlier, you have to be quick when you apply it due to the fact it really attracts the bees and not just the honey bees.


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## Delta Bay (Dec 4, 2009)

> I have a 50gal plastic tank in the back of my truck with approx a 2:1 mix.


6.762oz of EO would be all you need in 50 gal of 2:1 to deliver 1cc of EO per quart of syrup to feed. If you diluted (to 100 gal) the syrup to 1:1 you would double the EO to 13.524 oz.
One of the reasons the HBH product has Sodium Lauryl Sulfate in it is so the EO's will stay suspended in solution. With lethicin the EO's may separate from the syrup over time. Not a hundred % sure on that though. I've only mixed up as needed, small batches and used right away . Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is a heavy duty degreaser and can be toxic if not mixed right. Not something I would want to feed to my bees.

Do check my calculation as mistakes can be made!


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## toekneepea (Jul 7, 2010)

Delta Bay said:


> Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is a heavy duty degreaser and can be toxic if not mixed right. Not something I would want to feed to my bees.


It's also in your toothpaste (well, most toothpastes anyway). Too much of anything will kill you.

TP


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## ChristopherA (Jul 20, 2010)

A good book to read, Dose Makes The Poison

This was mandatory reading when I went to school and it explains a lot of how chemical affect the body. The same principles apply to the bee.


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## LITTLE JOHN (May 16, 2010)

The receipe that you have works great, but you left out the lecithin granules, 1/8 teaspoon, but dissolve it in a small amount of warm water over night. I also add 4 drops of thymol (essential oil of thyme). No more than 4 drops this stuff is potent.
One teaspoonfull to a quart of water is quite enough. If you have a robbing problem do not use it. It could also create a robbing problem. The smell will attract every bee within 3 miles. It does cause them to eat more and if sprayed on wax coated foundation they will draw it out much faster, but don't use to much, a little goes a long way. If you use it in one hive, then you must use in all your hives or you will have robbing. Just remember a drop of essential oil of spearmint is almost more than a grown man of 200 lbs. can take. This stuff is really strong and the thymol is worse.
Little John


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## PCM (Sep 18, 2007)

For those having trouble disolving Lecithin tablets,
Get Lecithin Capsules !

Empty the powder from the Capsule into a tad of water, mix with a spoon, disolves in a minute.

Brand name ,Solaray I bought at K-Mart.

Good Luck

:lookout: PCM


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## toekneepea (Jul 7, 2010)

PCM said:


> For those having trouble disolving Lecithin tablets,
> Get Lecithin Capsules !


Mr. Mueller, how many capsules do you use?

Thanks,
Tony P.


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## PCM (Sep 18, 2007)

toekneepea said:


> Mr. Mueller, how many capsules do you use?
> 
> Thanks,
> Tony P.


Not Mr.Mueller, but I use 1/8 teaspoon of Lecithin powder, I forgot the actual number of capsules, only 2 or 3, put in a cup of warm water, mix with spoon for a minute or two, after water comes to boil stir in sugar, remove from heat and add the remaining cup of lecithin water, mix and let cool till warm, then add oils.

:lookout: PCM


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## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

My local natural health food store has lecithin granules. No problem stirring them into boiling water.

Grant
Jackson, MO


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## jdpro5010 (Mar 22, 2007)

I have not had a hige problem dissolving the Lecithin granules either as long as the water is hot to boiling when you add them. I thought I remember somebody saying you had to use the granules as there were other issues if you used the capsule powder (other chemicals)? I just use the granules and store what I don't use right away in the refrigerator.


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## TxFirefighter (Dec 14, 2010)

why not try this type of lecithin? It's in liquid form.

https://www.lorannoils.com/showproduct.aspx?ProductID=8455&SEName=lecithin-liquid&notify=1


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