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.