# Essential Oils Timing



## AdamBeal (Aug 28, 2013)

Pretty new here and my son and I have some questions on essential oils. Is EO a treatment and in what cases is it not considered a treatment? When or under what circumstances would you consider giving bees access to it? 

Thanks,

Jack and Adam 
Beal's Bees


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

EOs are treatments and depending on which one and concentration can be extremely hazardous to you (and your bees.)

Now to answer your questions - some people do treat prophylacticly and some treat only with evidence that there is something to treat. How do you get evidence? Either you develop very good observational skills or you test. The most accurate tests involve killing bees.

Most people do not worry much about EOs contaminating their honey. The rule of thumb is to never use anything on your hive when you have supers on (collecting honey intended for human consumption.) some miticides advertise that they are ok to use with supers on, but the old rules of thumb die hard.

I am not a good person to ask about EO usage - when and under what circumstances - as I don't use most of them. I do use lemon grass oil as swarm lure.

Also I'm pretty sure the Fat Bee Man uses fogged Food Grade Mineral Oil (FGMO) not an EO - for Varroa.


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## gone2seed (Sep 18, 2011)

AdamBeal said:


> When or under what circumstances would you consider giving bees access to it?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> ...


First,let me say that I do not agree with this part of Andrew's statement."EOs are treatments and depending on which one and concentration can be extremely hazardous to you (and your bees.)"
They are treatments but unless you are using an outrageous amount or seriously overdosing your bees,then they are not harmful in my opinion.I use them twice a year,early spring and late fall and have not had problems.I use wintergreen,thyme oil and tea tree oil,sometimes in feed and other times added to a grease pattie.Use one of the recipes found here on Beesource.These are usually just a very few drops per gallon of syrup.


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

gone2seed said:


> First,let me say that I do not agree with this part of Andrew's statement."EOs are treatments and depending on which one and concentration can be extremely hazardous to you (and your bees.)"
> They are treatments but unless you are using an outrageous amount or seriously overdosing your bees,then they are not harmful in my opinion.


According to the rules of the treatment-free forum, they are treatments. See the sticky at the top of the forum for the rules that apply here.

_Adam Beal_, try posting your questions in the main forum or the Beekeeping 101 forum and you will likely get a slew of opinions, some helpful and some not as much.

HTH

Rusty

edited to add this from the sticky
:


> Treatment: A substance introduced by the beekeeper into the hive with the intent of killing, repelling, or inhibiting a pest or disease afflicting the bees.
> 
> Treatments include but are not limited to:
> Apiguard (thymol)
> ...


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## AdamBeal (Aug 28, 2013)

ok I will post in the other forum sorry about this and thanks for the input.


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