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.