# mint oil



## Guest (May 21, 2004)

Beekeepers use various mint oils for disease prevention (wintergreen, spearmint).

I just bought some "poison-free" wasp killer that is 8% mint oil that they claim is a wasp neuro-toxin...

1)Is the amount of oil fed to bees not enough to kill them?
2)Are bees that different from wasps that it won't affect them?
or
3)Is the "poison-free" spray really snake-oil? It did seem to work...

Although now my shed makes me hungry!!

-rick


----------



## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

If you use too much of the mint oils in your hive, you would also kill your bees. 
The percentage of mint oil in syrup is about 0.05%. There are drops of oil per gallon of syrup.
The wasp spray has 160 times the dosage of the syrup solutions.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

One of the dangers of using essential oils is if they are not emulsified well so that they mix into the syrup they will rise to the top because they are oil. When the concentrated oil gets to the bottom of the feeder (or the top if the bees get it from there in that kind of feeder) it will kill the bees.

It's all in the amount.

This is the reason the "serious" organics people say you shouldn't use essential oils at all. What happens when the bees are constantly exposed to the oils? What happens if the oils build up in the comb?


----------

