I remember not so long ago that there was a small flurry of activity on the
list concerning a young lady who found out that an extract from Perilla had
good activity against Varroa mites and did not hurt the bees and that she
received some sort of "award" for her discovery as well as a patent for this
application.

It was very interesting news to me, because I just happened to plant a patch of
Perilla in my garden this year and it is doing very well.  I have often grown
Perilla, an aromatic plant that looks something like Basil or Mint.  Since I
"just happen to have a bunch of it" and I also have bees (probably with mites),
I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions about the best ways to proceed to
experiment with using Perilla for bee mite control.  I personally do not know
whether the active ingredient is an essential oil of the plant or a water
soluble fraction.  I could just put stems/leaves inside my hives and lay them
on the top bars and let the bees remove them from the hive, thus exposing them
to the plants and their components as they tear them up and carry them out.
I could also use steam distilling and see if I get some oil from the plant,
then I could add it to, say food grade mineral oil and apply that to top bars,
or I could just mascerate the plant in a blender and squeeze the resultant
through a handkerchief and "spray" the liquid into the hive.  Any suggestions?

Layne Westover
College Station, Texas