Interesting substance thymol (5-methyl-2-isopropyl-phenol). Apparently
useful for discouraging mites and other such beasts. Somewhere in my
collection of bee keeping information I have a Russian paper (I think) that
suggest that bees use the ratio of Thymol/Clavicol to determine suitable
nectar sources. I believe this is in addition to a quick calculation that the
bees do as to whether the energy derived from the nectar (sugar)
source is > the energy expended in gathering the nectar from that
source.
Mind you if you have ever tasted Thyme honey you would know what to
much thymol in the brew can do to the flavour of honey. Incidently,
Thyme contains a lot of thymol hence the similarity in the name of the
plant and the organic oil. I once had some thyme honey analysed using
GCG for the presence of thymol and the result was < 1 ppm. I later
found out that the thymol may have been conjugated to a sugar molecule
and that this would make its presence invisible to a GCG under the
process used to prepare the sample. I would like to have this analysis
repeated again one of these days.
Robert Rice.