# Thyme oil, is anyone treating there sugar syrup with for varroa mites with it?



## Live Oak (Oct 11, 2008)

Being that I have harvested the honey and there seems to be a dearth in the nectar flow, I decided to treat my sugar syrup with Thyme oil. I am using 128 drops per 7 gallons of sugar syrup mixed with approx. 8 ounces of Pro Bee Health. The girls have been mobbing me and the feeders to get to it. I plan on feeding this mix to the girls for a week or two until the soy beans bloom that have been planted near by recently. I have also been feeding Ultra Bee dry powder which the girls have been gobbling up at about 6 cups per day. Appreciate any comments and suggestions. So far the girls have been taking the powder and syrup as fast as I put it out. This will be a short term treatment for varroa mites.


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## Rick 1456 (Jun 22, 2010)

You didn't say, was wondering what your mite count was?


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## lazy shooter (Jun 3, 2011)

Does thyme oil kill varroa mites? I'm new to the business and have never heard this.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

Thymol can be used to treat for Varroa, but not in syrup. That's an experimental treatment for Nosema, jury still out on effectiveness. Thymol is used for varroa by applying a gel (apiguard et. al) in the brood area and the volatilizing vapors kill phoretic mites; typically takes two treatments to catch emerging brood's mites.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Are you feeding the neighbors bees too or are you giving these rations in the hive? Search the web for fatbeeman and listen to his podcasts. There are three of them that will give you his philosophy and formula.


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## lazy shooter (Jun 3, 2011)

Hmmm, thyme oil and thymol had the makings of a spelling error, so I had to do an internet study to find out that thymol is found in thyme oil. Sounds like a tongue twister: thymol comes from thyme oil. Anyway, according to the EPA is does not have any adverse effect on humans. The learning curve on bees may be too much for my old noggin.


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## Live Oak (Oct 11, 2008)

Rick 1456 said:


> You didn't say, was wondering what your mite count was?


Couldn't say. I am trying this as a preventive/prophylactic type of mid season treatment. The mites don't like thymol or thyme oil. It is tolerated by the bees. I have no data or proof to verify but my thinking was that this could help reduce varroa mite infestation. In the fall I will treat with Miteaway II formic acid pads.


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## Live Oak (Oct 11, 2008)

Vance G said:


> Are you feeding the neighbors bees too or are you giving these rations in the hive? Search the web for fatbeeman and listen to his podcasts. There are three of them that will give you his philosophy and formula.


I seriously doubt I am feeding any neighbors bees as I am on a very large acreage farm and the only beekeeper in the area. Thanks for the tip on fatbeeman.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Thyme oil and oregano oil are indeed effective at killing varroa, but by means of being fed to larvae in the cells, thus killing varroa as they try to feed on the larvae...

By adding it to syrup in early spring and fed to the colonies, the bees will store it around around the cluster and thus feed it back to the brood killing any varroa in the colony and using up the thymolated syrup before the flows begin... using it again in fall will once again get it stored closer to the nest as the queen starts to make the brood coverage areas smaller and smaller, thus getting it fed to the larvae quickly and killing any varroa that the colony had picked up during the season... as with any type of treatment, you need to have a rotation of different treatments to use each season so that the mites do not begin to build resistances to the treatments.

Hope this helps.


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## Peaches (Jun 8, 2011)

One question that comes to my mind, do you treat yourself or you children for a headache if you do not have one? If so, then by all means go ahead and treat your bees. If you don't take preventive medicine for yourself and children, then why do it to your bees. 

You need to find out if you have a mite problem before you start treating with chemicals. Just a thought.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Well what I do DO is get my children and myself innoculations for known biohazards. You would do well to listen to anything Dr. Russell the famous entomologist and life long commercial bee supplier has to say.


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

I started adding thymol to syrup, if only because it prevents fermentation, mold, etc . Thymol is toxic to Varroa under the right conditions, namely volatilizing or releasing vapors around 5 day larva.

rrussel would you be so kind as to share the premix % ( I use grain alc. ) and then the mll to gallon? That you use for anti Varroa.

Thank you


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Sure. But first, I must make it clear that I have not used "thymol" as it comes in crystal form... I prefer the simple Red thyme oil and oil of oregano method for creating a thymolized syrup... the active agent that is fatal to mites in these forms is carvacrol... this is actually found in many types of herbs and thus is rendered into their oils... oil of oregano actually has a much higher amount of carvacrol than thyme oil does... out of 216 mg (about 8 drops) of oil of oregano (or 86 mg of pure oregano oil), there is about 60 mg of carvacrol...

Instead of this application method being dependant upon temperatures and fumes, it is dependant only upon the nurses consuming it in order to produce jelly to feed larvae with at any stage... these agents within the jelly are fatal to mites, yet have no lasting effects on apis mellifera or their queens and drones fertility levels...

The amounts that I have found to be adequate for mite control are 2ml (or two Droppers or pipets) of oil of oregano, 2ml of red thyme oil, 3 gallons of warm-hot water, & 25 lbs of cane sugar... this makes 5 gallons of 1:1 syrup with 2 ml of oil of oregano and 2 ml of red thyme oil...

As always, I recommend that you only treat when needed and that you follow the specifics closely... treating with this during a flow will not kill many mites as it will simply be stored with other nectar thus diluting its properties... 

Here is a link that may help folks to understand the differences in the two types of thyme related treatments and give a better idea of how and when to treat in order to get the thymolized syrup to be used effectively and quickly restore the colonies nutritional health as soon as the treatment has run its course.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...Nucs/page4&highlight=treatment+free+suppliers

Hope this helps.


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

OK; that makes it very clear.


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

Wow, fascinating stuff. Is all Red Thyme Oil or Oil of Oregano the same or can the level of carvacrol vary in different formulations?


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

It can indeed vary by brand... we are about to start offering a few brands that we know to be effective... as with most oils, there are inert materials or carrier agents as well... usually extra virgin olive oil... the better the product, the less inert materials it will have, and thus the more pure ingredient...


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

Vance G said:


> Well what I do DO is get my children and myself innoculations for known biohazards. You would do well to listen to anything Dr. Russell the famous entomologist and life long commercial bee supplier has to say.


Treating with thyme oil really isn't the same as an inoculation. I think the original question is fair, or at least the implied question of whether prophylactic treatment of honeybees is ever a good idea.


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

rrussell6870 said:


> It can indeed vary by brand... we are about to start offering a few brands that we know to be effective... as with most oils, there are inert materials or carrier agents as well... usually extra virgin olive oil... the better the product, the less inert materials it will have, and thus the more pure ingredient...


Thanks very much. The lack of labeling and consistency of many essential oils has made me very reluctant to use them for myself or my bees. A reliable source would be very welcome.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

rrussell6870 said:


> I prefer the simple Red thyme oil and oil of oregano method for creating a thymolized syrup... the active agent that is fatal to mites in these forms is carvacrol... this is actually found in many types of herbs and thus is rendered into their oils... oil of oregano actually has a much higher amount of carvacrol than thyme oil does... out of 216 mg (about 8 drops) of oil of oregano (or 86 mg of pure oregano oil), there is about 60 mg of carvacrol...



Robert, 

So would you advise the use of oregano oil and thyme oil over other oils, such as lemongrass and spearmint? If oregano has the highest amount of carvacrol, then why bother with the others at all? 

And further - Which brands of EO's have you found to be most effective in your experience?

Thanks,

Adam


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Lemongrass oil (Cymbopogon flexuosus) is appealing to bees, and is useful in swarm traps and to entice bees to take up syrup, move onto new supers, or use recovered comb that gas been slimed in the past by shb... but as far as mites and bee health goes, it holds no helpful properties...

Spearmint oil was useful in relieving stresses due to t-mites, but again not effective enough against varroa when considering the better treatment choices that there are today... 

The most important thing that I can say about eo's is that they are NOT what nature intended for our bees to eat... there is a microbial balance that comes from the foragers of each area and the bees native to that area will indeed reach that balance in time... once that balance is met, the bees will be healthier, more productive, and less likely to fall prey to pests and diseases... when feeding syrup, we knock their guttural enzymes out of wack... syrup is needed in most operations to meet the demands of the industry, and that is understandable, but for those of you that are simply seeking healthy, productive bees, you will want to shy away from messing with that balance as much as possible... feeding syrup to treat for varroa needs to start in early build up, and end well before the flow starts... this way they can return to feeding on what they should be before the main build up has reached its second cycle... 

The use of any oils that are not delivered in a proper dosage interval (ie... hbh, etc) is NOT going to help your bees get stronger, but WILL help the pests and diseases get stronger... when selecting something to use as a miticide or disease treatment, the dosage has to yield a "kill-rate" of 95% or better... most drug companies stick to the old faithful 99.99% kill rate... this is because any target organism that is exposed to the treatment, but is not killed by it, can and will produce offspring that will possess resistances to that treatment... again this is why it is so important to rotate treatments each season and use the proper dosage each time (by "proper", I mean "effective for your area and situation"... 

My recommendation for eo uses is to only use what you know will work, and leave the others alone... it may also be important to add that one should use caution when handling these oils as they can be harmful and even fatal to humans in the oil form... most are intended for vapor application diluted greatly... just the fumes after dilution can be pleasing, but ingested they can be deadly, and a major skin irritant if they get on you... oil of oregano is ons of the safest oils on the market, and is usually diluted to 43mg of pure oil out of 108mg total... the heavy amounts of inert ingredients (in this case, as well as most, extra virgin olive oil) is because the pure oil can be fatal by simply spilling it on ones wrist... thus any less of a dilution would cause it to be considered a bio-hazard and a potential weapon...

I know it seems like oils are the natural way to go, but there is a lot of good science behind the methods of application and timing that should be followed closely to keep it a natural solution.

As to which brand is best... my brand of course! Lol. Just kidding, there are many good brands and I will list them individually as soon as I can catalog them all for you.

Hope this helps!


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## Rick 1456 (Jun 22, 2010)

I'm curious if introducing EOs can/does have an effect on the hives pheromone chemistry. Most of the information I have seems suggests that it is rather sensitively balanced. How little does the balance have to be off before "things" start happening. 
I ask this because I used EOs, in a former life, and had the Queen superceded three times. Stopped the EOs, and the queen stayed. May be a coincidence. Admittedly, I was using an "internet formula" with Wintergreen. I convinced myself what I was doing did it. No more for me. I still have that hive. Thriving, no treatments. Made splits. Anyway. The hive chemistry seems to be left out in these discussions, I'm asking should it?


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Robert,

I'd say that a great number of people using EO's are using Lemongrass oil and wintergreen or mint of some kind, in a variation of Honey-B-Healthy. You're saying that those Red Thyme and oregano are the way to go. That's counter to a lot of people. 

Adam


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Rick, you are exactly right about the aromatic properties of eo's having a major effect on the pheromone levels within colonies... again, timing has a great deal to do with the effects that they can have, good or bad... sounds like you caught the problem and succeeded...

Adam, I understand that completely, and to be honest, my blunt approach does hurt sales a bit... but my intention is to teach better bee keeping practices and help to move our industry back into a better era of healthier, more productive bees... good bee health doesn't come from a bottle, it comes from the plants that they forage upon... most would be amazed at the reduction of winter losses that they would have if the stopped feeding and selected treatments that were specifically set to address an issue instead of throwing a mix of low doses of treatments at the problem... this doesn't completely address the issue, thus the surviving organisms are able to adjust to each compound and become resistant to them making future applications even more ineffective...

The true issue with eo's is that they are capable of being used as a solution, but if too many are used at once, the dose of each is lower and the mites and diseases will just get stronger... 

This is where my issue with compounds like hbh comes from... none of these oils are available in nature, so their presence in a hive of bees is not a natural one... a simply treatment with red thyme oil and oil of oregano will rid a colony of mites quite quickly when used correctly... if the treatments are rotated each season, the mites and diseases will not be able to adjust to their effects, thus there is no need to add additional compounds that would not be naturally available...

Lastly, there is the issue of acclimation... as most are trying to get their bees to adjust to the environments of their local, the presence of compounds that are not found in their location will only set that back that much further... there are natural beneficial enzymes that change in every environment... the bees need to become adjusted to the forage of the area and these forages will effect those enzymes... through time, they will adjust and become much more healthy, but not if the enzymes are kept in a state of flux due to unnatural compounds.

Hope that all makes sense! I am on a boat, so its hard to post. Lol.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

rrussell6870 said:


> ...my intention is to teach better bee keeping practices and help to move our industry back into a better era of healthier, more productive bees...


I believe that, which is why I am taking the time to write to you here. I understand what you are saying, and have been guilty myself of misuse of EO's in that I fed a lot of Peppermint, thyme and lemongrass oils to the bees last fall, only to find the bees overrun with mites. In the Fall, the ground outside both of my hives was crawling with hundreds of bees with DWV, and the population was way down going into the cold months. I ended up using oxalic vapor as the cold set in, and the dead mites looked like sand on the landing boards. Thousands of them. One colony died in March, the other made it through with a cluster the size of a grapefruit.

So where do I go from here? I now have two strong colonies, as the overwintered one has built up and I got a nuc in June. I have been checking drone comb and removing a certain amount this year and have only seen a couple of mites total so far, after examining hundreds of drone larvae. How do I get from here to next summer without getting overrun with mites again? Is there a place for thyme oil there? And should it be "red" thyme oil? If so, why?

Thanks,

Adam


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Sounds like you are already heading towards some more issues... even though you haven't found many in the drone brood, I would wager that an ether roll of your foragers would reveal an average of 5-9 mites... being in Halifax, your climate shouldn't allow for such a production of varroa in such a short amount of time... so my first concern would be where these mites are breeding and how can you limit their transfer or stop them at the source... my second concern would be what type of bees you are keeping... 

What other bee keepers are in your area and/or how many feral colonies would you estimate in the past three years as opposed to this year?


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

rrussell6870 said:


> ...What other bee keepers are in your area and/or how many feral colonies would you estimate in the past three years as opposed to this year?


This last question doesn't make sense to me.

Halifax is zone 6 in terms of climate. The bees are mutts that have bred here over the last 10 years. The nucs I have bought are locally raised with locally raised queens. It is difficult to find honeybees in the flowers if you're looking for them here. There aren't many. There are far more bumblebees around, and there are several types of those. We do have a lot of honeybees in Nova Scotia, but most are in the agricultural regions and I am in the downtown core of Halifax. There are likely very few feral colonies here in the city, and of the handful of other colonies kept locally, most have come from the same sources. We have a closed border for bees in Nova Scotia. There are plenty of imported queens, all coming from Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. However, the guy I buy from sells to most people around here.

Mites over wintered with the bees. The oxalic doesn't kill them all. I saw mites on the bees in the winter even after killing thousands.

Adam


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Adam Foster Collins said:


> The bees are mutts that have bred here over the last 10 years. The nucs I have bought are locally raised with locally raised queens. It is difficult to find honeybees in the flowers if you're looking for them here. There aren't many. There are far more bumblebees around, and there are several types of those. We do have a lot of honeybees in Nova Scotia, but most are in the agricultural regions and I am in the downtown core of Halifax. There are likely very few feral colonies here in the city, and of the handful of other colonies kept locally, most have come from the same sources. We have a closed border for bees in Nova Scotia. There are plenty of imported queens, all coming from Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. However, the guy I buy from sells to most people around here.


You nailed it, but I think you thought that would be going a different direction. Lol. Genetic diversity is most likely the answer to you troubles. It has been many many years since I have seen a hive that had that many mites, and the only ones that I did were in an operation that was pretty well isolated from other bees, had the same supplier using the routine methods of grafting from one colony, putting minimal concern into drone control/production, as well as keeping up with which lineages were being promoted, how often and so on.. the end effect was total loss... an entire operation so badly inbred that they were doomed to fall victim to almost any threat that came their way... 

I know that your supplier is very likely a great person and a great bee keeper, and none of this would be their fault, it just happens due to methods that have been taught for so long and the situational effects of an area. This season would be too late to try a fresh lineage from say David (Daykel) in new Zealand... but that is ok because first you will need to address the mite load within the area itself, then you can test a new lineage to see if the mites do not seem to stop being a problem after a few years... again, please do not misunderstand me here, I am not saying that you have poorly raised or selected bees, but the lack of genetic diversity within the specific lineages of the bees in your particular area would be my first hurdle to cross when attempting to better my bees... 

Do you know what kind of issues the others in your area are facing with mites?


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## josethayil (Jul 17, 2008)

If you are able to get queens from New Zealand, David from Daykel Apiaries will be a good place. He does keep a wide range of Carniolans and have a closed mating program and each line is maintained seperately. This allows to have a great genetic diversity.

I buy queens from him and all of them have performed well so far. Definitely the most varroa tolerant stock available in New Zealand at the moment.

Bee Research team at Plant And Food, Hamilton(NZ) has also developed a new line of varroa tolerant stock of Italians and released it to the industry this year. They are still under evaluation, so not available for sale at the moment.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Others in my area are facing similar issues with mites. 

The person raising the nucs isn't so isolated. He is in an agricultural area, and there are a lot of other beekeepers around him. I am sure, however that he does not run a "strict breeding program". He's not a breeder per se. He just sells nucs each spring. He's a small operation, with between 30 and 50 colonies depending on the year.

Nova Scotia's importation of queens is a provincially-run operation, and hobbyist beeks aren't having much of an influence on where they come from. We don't have tracheal mites here, and we don't have small hive beetle. Cape Breton Island, which constitutes the northern portion of Nova Scotia does not have varroa. On the other hand, small hive beetle has been found in shipments from Hawaii for the last two years, so it's only a matter of time because we're still importing from there...

So really working much with specific genetic stock is quite difficult for someone like me to do here. Any other approaches?

Adam


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## G B (Nov 6, 2009)

Dr. russell I have been using e-o for two years now. Would you mind elaborating on the mix of thyme and oregano you are using? I too fear I may have been over using them in the past. I did 24 hour sticky board traps last fall and had a high of 48 mite, with most of the hives in the 12-25 mite range for the 48 hour period. I have just put hopguard on my hives in colorado as its supposed to be ok to use with suppers on. I am working to raise my colony count to commercial levels so I wont be harvesting any honey anyway, just thought it would be better on the bees. Any info you may bee able to pass on would be greately appreciated.


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## hilreal (Aug 16, 2005)

I used thymolated syrup last year whenever I needed to feed following directions on Randy Oliver's site: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/
Though his data did not support varoa suppression, I only lost 10% of my hives compared to our club averarage of 50%. Not a controlled study by any means and only one year so take it for what it is worth. Heard about the oregano oil this week from Dr. Gussman at the HAS meetings and might give it a try also. Had planned to use MAQS this fall but getting a little concerned about reports of brood and queen issues.


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## G B (Nov 6, 2009)

hilreal I feel the same way about the MAQS


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