Judging by the flurry of activity, we are just past Full Moon.  Yup, it was 
the 29th.

Anyhow, Pete says, and rightly so, "As I already pointed out earlier this 
week, essential oils were heavily scrutinized by some of the best bee 
scientists in the business and found lacking".

I might add, though, that a lot of the work was in regard to *mite* control 
and that subtle and preventative effects were not foremost in their minds. 
Nosema has not been a huge issue until, suddenly, now it is.

>  All I can say is that in my opinion dumping essential oils into hives 
> willy nilly is ignorant at best, and is not supported by scientific work. 
> Just the opposite, it can be disruptive.

That has been my position to present, however, the operative expression is 
IMO "willy nilly ".  I see too much of that.  On the other hand, some 
careful work has been done, and some of the ideas have a long enough track 
record to have gained some respectability.

I have been looking at the Turkish study at
http://scialert.net/qredirect.php?doi=pjbs.2005.1142.1145&linkid=pdf
and reading carefully.

In the study in question, the bees actually do best under the thymol in 
terms of nosema, winter loss, and honey production for a full three years.

It refers among other work, to "Screening of natural compounds for the 
control of nosema disease in honeybees (Apis mellifera)" 
http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=article&access=doi&doi=10.1051/apido:2008022

The dose works out to be
0.000066g x 1000mL/L x 3.78 L/Gal = 0.25 g/Gal (US)

Randy also discusses mixing thymol at
http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45

Not sure how his concentration compares.

Still digging...
 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Access BEE-L directly at:
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L