To whom it may concern,
In the januari-APIS "Oils of essence" it is said:
>however, the European product Apilife VAR (R), which has thyme oil and has
shown good promise in mite control, also contains eucalyptol and menthol,
which remain on the regulated list. This makes registration of that product
necessary,...<
 
The thymol-blend contains thymol (76%), camphor (3.8%), menthol (3.8%) and
Eucalyptol (16,4%)
-According to the literatur:
-the varroamite-mortality of thymol is much higher than for the other
essentiel oils.
-Adding camphor to the thymol-blend is not affected to the mortality rate of
the varroa-mites.
-Eucalyptol has a too high mortality for the honey bees in relation to the
mite-mortality.
-Thymol, as powder, reduced the mite population more than 96%, without
noticable damage to honey bees.
-Menthol seems to be very useful to cope the T-mite, but I don't find any
data for Varroamites.
 
So I'm wondering why such a blend is being used.
What is the exact role of camphor, menthol and eucalyptol?
With thymol you will have no problem with the registration, as I understand.
 
Some literatur:
F.Chiesa (Apidologie 1991)
M.Rickli et al.(Apidology 1991)
A.Imdorf et al. (Apidologie 1994, 1995; Bee World 1995)
N.W.Calderone et al. (J. of Econ. Entomology)
 
Francois
The Netherlands
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