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...
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