# Dubious Treatments?



## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

I started using Honey B Healthy and Amino B Booster this summer. The bees survived a good mosquito spraying and are quite well so far. The rest of the chemicals you can keep. 
I follow the research projects because they have hundreds of hives and isolate the variables, not just someone's opinion. Thymol and other treatments do little more than make someone rich and not the buyer.


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

Thymol crystals as a mite treatment are waste of money and totally ineffective. Do you know why???

It’s so easy to find out, strew the crystals of the frames and see what’s happen. The bees take the crystals out faster than you can put them in.

Grind the Thymol into a fine powder (with a coffee grinder) this will help a lot. It takes a long time for the bees to clean it up.

If you put the powder in an old sock and bees can’t reach it, it’s even better.... but use a clean sock a dirty might kill the bees.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

Honey Bee Healthy is supposed to be a feeding stimulant to get the bees to take syrup down faster.

What do you think (or they think) they are trying to treat by feeding Honey Bee Healthy? Starvation? Slow consumption of syrup?


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## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

*>I thought about buying stock in thymol crystals when they first came out< *

That would of been back in 1940 then,as that is when they were first used in beekeeping,athough the crystals have been around for many years before that.
But as a varroa treatment, the crystals alone don't seem to be very effective.


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## papar (Apr 10, 2007)

I didn't use any HBH last year and I don't notice any difference in how the colonies looked at the end of the year.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

I always have strong feelings on treatments / additives / supplements, etc. In my mind, anything you do will work if the colony needs it. If they're hungry, food helps. If they are sick, meds help. If they are queenless.....you get the idea. 

Once you start addressing non-problems, the results become hard to read or interpret. Does an abundant food supply help a healthy colony? Probably not, although a surplus is always welcome IF needed down the road. Does HBH make for healthier bees? Not sure. I think you have to define "healthier". 

For me, the roadblock is measuring something and "guessing" that my previous action had an effect. When I used HBH (I don't now and I'm not criticizing it...I just don't spend the money on it any more), I was always looking for "proof" in my own colonies that the introduction of that product had a material, positive effect. And...I always found "proof". The colony made it through the winter; was booming in the spring; had a low mite load; made a lot of honey; didn't supersede the queen; didn't swarm....whatever. Of course, I had colonies that were the opposite and my natural inclination was to blame it on something else. I also conveniently ignored those great colonies that I did nothing to, excepting to admire how well they did all on their own.

So, for me, I treat or supplement ONLY when I'm specifically addressing a concern. I feed sugar water to give them a surplus, but not to hives that have one already. Same for feeding pollen and I RARELY feed in the late winter / early spring. I don't use HBH, not because they're anything wrong with it but because I'm not convinced that I can specifically address a known shortcoming. If I can, I'll order it and use it. Relative to mite treatments, I've always been a proponent of IPM if you decide to treat at all. I don't believe that any single solution is adequate, especially given the intricacies of weather and timing here in the Northeast. 

Finally, I'm very conscious of the fact that we change the environment of our colonies each time we take honey out or introduce a supplement or treatment. Bees are very resilient but they're either the beneficiaries or our efforts or the victims. To me, and maybe it's just me, I'd rather keep them in a manner that lets them do what they do best while reducing a little of their stress or creating some opportunity. 

It's in the details and the details count. That's what I think anyway.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Countryboy said:


> What do you think (or they think) they are trying to treat by feeding Honey Bee Healthy? Starvation?


I don't know. I never really got an answer that made much sense. I think they were just following someone elses example. They applied it every time they went into the hives.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

beekuk said:


> *>I thought about buying stock in thymol crystals when they first came out< *
> 
> That would of been back in 1940 then,.


Maybe that would have been the time to buy the stock, but I wasn't even a thought then. Or even a twinkle in my Mothers' eye, as the saying goes.

I've never heard of it being used as a Varroa treatment. Tracheal yes, varroa no. Maybe it isn't too late to buy that stock after all if people are using it for that.

what about all of the cumouphas and fluvalinate that has been bought and proven to be inneffective, after a while. I realize that it's the beekeepers responsibility to use the right material responsibly, but even when done so some treatments eventually prove less than worth while.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

sqkcrk said:


> Some friends of mine, one who has kept bees longer than I have been alive.....At this time we all have about 20% mortality.


Mark
I would be looking at the 20% loss you all have at this time in early January. Are these all bees that have been moved to SC? With a loss like that, at this time of the year, something is going on in your bees and you have to find out what. When you do figure it out, your question will be answered. At this point, throwing treatments at the problem is a waste of money and time...the time going by, before you discover the truth. Sorta like Russian Roulette, eh? 

Hard tellin' not knowin'


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Yes Mike, I'm sure that is the right question to be asking. But you know how crazy I am. That being doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

One thing I'm going to change is queen source. I'm going to let splits raise their own. Mostly because I'm not organized enuf to graft. And I have enuf trouble reading this screen let alone trying to see a three day old larvae.

Letting them raise their own used to do me quite well. We'll see.

I also have 40 colonies and 15 two story nucs here in NY. It'll be interesting to see how they winter.


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## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

*
>I've never heard of it being used as a Varroa treatment. Tracheal yes, varroa no.<*

Yes it is used in its crystal form in the franko thymol frame,and several other similar methods .see link
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/fraknoframe.html

But is the main ingrediant in many varroa treatments,such as apilif-var,apiguard,exosect,Thymovar,and several other varroa treatments,which are very effective.


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## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> I have 15 two story nucs here in NY.


I'm curious sqkcrk, what is a 'two story nuc' and how big is it (how many frames, what size frames)?

Is there any advantage to keeping a nuc in two stories as opposed to one (bigger) story??

-fafrd


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

These are 5 frame nucs that I made late last summer, which instead of transfering into full sized hives I added a nuc super to. Sobasically one 5 frame nuc box w/ another on top of it.

I guess the advantage of a two story nuc is having honey above the bees and in the spring being able to split the nuc and having two or more nucs.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

If a treatment or supplement results in just a 5-10 % improvement in performance that is almost impossible to detect without a very controlled environment. But 5 - 10 % is *a lot* on or off of your bottom line.

You really need independent scientific research to measure effects, but the only people who are going to pay for that are the ones who will profit from the results. If the results can't be spun to help with marketing then they don't get published. 

That's why Oxalic acid isn't approved (as far as I know) as a mitacide in the US. No one would profit from it, so no one will pay for the approval process. Even if it might be one of the best/safest things to use, we can't really legally do so. Just an example.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_They applied it every time they went into the hives. _

How do you 'apply' Honey Bee Healthy? Honey Bee Healthy is normally fed in syrup.

How did they keep the Honey Bee Healthy out of the honey? How did they keep the syrup the HBH was mixed with out of the honey?

Hmm. I have heard of HBH being mixed with water and sprayed with a mister bottle. Is this how they applied it? Still, how did they keep the bees from getting it in the honey?


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## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> These are 5 frame nucs that I made late last summer, which instead of transfering into full sized hives I added a nuc super to. Sobasically one 5 frame nuc box w/ another on top of it.
> 
> I guess the advantage of a two story nuc is having honey above the bees and in the spring being able to split the nuc and having two or more nucs.


sqkck,

thanks for the reply to my questions.

I guessed this is what you might have meant, but I appreciate the confirmation.

Am I right that 'honey-above-the-bees' is entering into winter and by spring there is brood in both boxes with this configuration? If not, splitting would probably be more complicated than you suggest...


-fafrd


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Countryboy said:


> I have heard of HBH being mixed with water and sprayed with a mister bottle. Is this how they applied it? Still, how did they keep the bees from getting it in the honey?


Yes. I don't think there was ny concern about that.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

fafrd said:


> Am I right that 'honey-above-the-bees' is entering into winter and by spring there is brood in both boxes with this configuration? If not, splitting would probably be more complicated than you suggest...
> -fafrd


Even w/ bees only in the upper box, especially w/ a number of dbl nucs to choose frames of brood from, splitting isn't that hard. Having excluders for nucs is a problem, unless one has some old plastic ones that you don't minds cutting in two.

Equalize the number of frames of brood, honeyand pollen, and empty comb in each box and add a cell to each box and you have your splits.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Here's what we know about HBH:

Lemongrass oil simulates Nasonov pheromone. This will disrupt how the hive communicates.

Lemongrass oil has been shown to help kill nosema in honeybees in a study done in Australia a few years ago.

Lemongrass oil and peppermint oil have both been shown to be antimicrobials.

HBH has been shown to be a feeding stimulant (and in my experience a robbing stimulant as well)

Feeding has been shown to clear up nosema infections.

Some microbes are necessary to the health of the bees gut, the fermentation of pollen into bee bread (pollen being indigestible to bees) and the general health of the hive.

Some microbes are pathogens.

Therefore:

It's reasonable to assume that IF you have nosema or some other pathogen, it may help that situation. 

If you don't, it may hurt by upsetting the microbe balance and/or setting off robbing and confusing the communication of the hive.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

sqkcrk said:


> Even w/ bees only in the upper box, especially w/ a number of dbl nucs to choose frames of brood from, splitting isn't that hard. Having excluders for nucs is a problem, unless one has some old plastic ones that you don't minds cutting in two.
> 
> Equalize the number of frames of brood, honeyand pollen, and empty comb in each box and add a cell to each box and you have your splits.


Mark,
That is why I made 4 frame nucs instead of 5 framers. If you make 4 frame nucs out of 3/4 stock you can get three frames plus a feeder with a little bit of wiggle room. Two of these nucs, side-by-side, equals a standard box so they can be placed on a hive above a double screen board (with a strip down the middle to support segregation) and excluders fit two nucs at a time. If you add a nuc as a super then the queen excluder can handle two such splits. Having the entrances in opposite directions has proven critical for me, but other than that, it works really well. Sorry to go off topic.
Regarding bee treatments in general, forums like this are rife with examples of how a treatment worked really well but there are never any controls. Beekeeper X states that his bees never looked so good and attributes that to treatment Y. What is almost always missing is a tally of how half of his untreated hived performed. The journals do a better job but they often fail to help the beekeeper understand how vastly different 80% and 98% efficacy differ at the population level. As an example, how long does it take for equal starting populations of Varroa to recover from an 80% efficient treatment v.s. a 98% efficient treatment.


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## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

HVH said:


> Mark,
> Regarding bee treatments in general, forums like this are rife with examples of how a treatment worked really well but there are never any controls. The journals do a better job but they often fail to help the beekeeper understand how vastly different 80% and 98% efficacy differ at the population level. As an example, how long does it take for equal starting populations of Varroa to recover from an 80% efficient treatment v.s. a 98% efficient treatment.


I agree with the point you are making, but I am not sure the example you give is a good one (recovery from Varroa treatment).

The literature is all pretty consistent that Varroa are able to roughly double their population monthly in worker brood without treatment. Assuming this is correct, recovery back to initial infestation levels would take 8-9 weeks after an 80% efficient treatment and 22-23 weeks after a 98% efficient treatment.

-fafrd


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

Fafrd

Your calculation works .....only if there is no re infection from other hives in the flying ranges of your colonies.

With a few feral hives or one lazy beekeeper and your bees can bring in hundreds of mites within a month. 
IMO even with the best treatment you must keep an eye on the whole year.


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## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Axtmann,

of course. But no study is ever going to be able to predict what you can expect given all of those environmental and apiary-specific variables. 

My point was not to suggest that monitoring of Varroa levels could be ignored during this theoretical 'recovery period', but simply that, given no external reinfestation of the hive, it _*is*_ possible to predict the recovery time of a mite population in a worker-brood-only hive given the accepted literature on the growth rate (doubling every month).

In any case, I absolutely agree with you that Varroa levels sould be monitored constantly if you are treating - it is the only way to know when reinfestation has occured or something else has changed (such as acceleration of Varroa growth in drone brood you were not aware you had...).


-fafrd


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## TxFirefighter (Dec 14, 2010)

I'm going to try and keep this short and simple. I will say, I'm a new beek and by all means don't know much. But, I am a paramedic so I know quiet a bit about medication, and the methodic breakdown of it in animals, and humans. Bees can't be that far off from it.

The most problems today are simply because beeks treat their colonies prophylactically for diseases, mites, and pests. This is why these things are getting tougher to deal with. They are building up tolerance to the things used to kill them, only compounding the problem. Nature is adaptive. Remember, bees have been around much longer than humans. (scientifically speaking) Not my view though, but that's a whole other issue. IMO, the medication that is being poured onto bees is actually causing the downfall of the species instead of letting nature find it's own way of dealing with them.

Let's take a look at this perspective from a human standpoint for a minute. 
Do you take heart medication when you're a teenager as a "just in case" medication for when you get older? Or blood pressure meds even though your blood pressure is normal, but it COULD go up someday.- NO
Do you take doses of medication for mites? (Yes, you don have mites in you) Just because they are there? NO you don't. Your body deals with them in it's own way.
The bees are the same way. Medications and treatments should be reserved for "when they are needed" only. Just like when a doctor gives you a script for a medication when you are sick.

Do you take vitamins? Most people do.
Why? So your body is more healthy and can fend off diseases on its own.

I see HBH as a vitamin for bees. 

Healthy bees need less treatment. Keep your bees healthy and let them do what they do. Treat only when they are sick. They'll rebound.
If you treat them prophylactically, you may actually be making them more sick, thus they are more likely to have problems.

As a beek, you are charged with providing a healthy and safe environment for your bees. Look at yourself as a "doctor" for your bees instead of a "manipulator"

Just my .02 worth..


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## RiodeLobo (Oct 11, 2010)

Another example is the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is caused by several factors. The first is over use of antibiotics or misuse of them (such as for a cold which is viral not bacterial). The second is the improper use of antibiotics. I see this every week in my office. I cannot tell you how many time i hear "Well i had some left over from the last time, so i just took them." 

I think we need to use the same methodology for treating bees. Use treatments, if you are going to, when they are needed. Than strive to eradicate the problem, as much as possible, not to minimize it so we breed survivor vectors. 

Dan


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## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

*As a beek, you are charged with providing a healthy and safe environment for your bees.*


I agree with you,but believe that the whole human race needs to try and create a healthy and safe enviroment,(which we sure don't have at the moment),and not just beekeepers; uphill struggle i think.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

>>but use a clean sock a dirty might kill the bees. 

ha ha


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

>>IMO, the medication that is being poured onto bees is actually causing the downfall of the species instead of letting nature find it's own way of dealing with them.

I dont agree. its the huge number of bees we are keeping in every area of the landscape to provide pollination to the crops we grow all across the landscape to keep our human population alive. Naturally bees dont survive up here, yet we keep them successfully. Naturally there arnt hundreds of hives within a four mile radius, and 30-40 to a single spot. yet we keep them successfully.

Nature has never allowed the vast population densities to survive before. Our management allows us to keep bees as we now know them.


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## rdlp18 (Mar 7, 2012)

Michael Bush,
I live in Chicago and drove down to southern Illinois yesterday I brought home an 8-frame nuc & queen with a good amount of brood, some honey, very little pollen and nectar flow. I fed them two quart-sized ziplock baggies, one with HBH to stimulate feeding & nectar flow and one without. After reading your post, I'm disgusted with myself for using HBH & hope I haven't screwed up my bees. Should I go home and remove the HBH baggie and replace it with one does not have HBH or leave it? I don't want to mess with the hive too much as I'm hoping their settling in to their new environment. I'm concerned I've done more harm than good. Please advise.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I'm concerned I've done more harm than good. Please advise. 

Anyone who has tried to kill a feral colony has discovered that bees are much tougher than you think. What's done is done. The hive that wasn't treated will likely drift and inoculate the other hive and after a while things will get back to normal. No point "crying over spilt milk".

You usually start with bees that have been treated and are out of balance already, but balance will be restored eventually.


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