David Trickett wrote -
 
> I have a few supers to remove today or tomorrow so I'll try spraying
> them down with water and mint oil laced water instead of using the
> smoker to see if there's any difference in aggressiveness.  I may
> try using sugar water and sugar water with mint oil also.  One
> possible complication is that my bees now associate the smell of
> mint oil with FOOD.  Wonder how that happened... ;)
 
Possibly any odour such as that produced by smoke may block certain
pheromones produced by bees.  On the other hand perhaps smoke gives
bees a particular message.
 
Using essential oils to modify bee behaviour interests me.  Perhaps
the best starting point might be the effect that essential oils are
supposed to have on humans.  Peppermint oils are generally recognised
as stimulants and therefore might not be good for calming bees.
On the other hand oils such as camomile,  camphor,  cedarwood,
geranium,  clary,  neroli and sandalwood are considered to be
sedatives.  Whether they would have any specific on bees I would not
wish to speculate,  but if they are to be sprayed onto bees they
should be used in very dilute form because they are quite
concentrated.
 
In Mark Winston's  'The Biology Of The Honeybee' he gives the
chemicals comprising the Nasonov pheromone as -
 
Geraniol
Nerolic acid
Geranic acid
(E) - citral
(Z) - citral
(E - E) farnesol
Nerol
 
I am NOT an organic chemist,  but with the exeption of farnesol,  I
expect that all of the other compounds could be found in a mix of -
 
Oils of Geranium,  Neroli  and Lemon.  Perhaps this explains why
plants such as Lemon Balm have often been described as attractive to
bees and sometimes used to prepare bait hives.
 
I have often wondered whether the use of such oils might be an
effective aid to pollination.
 
Best wishes
 
Joe