Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

So ......
What is the general consensus, if any, of this group here on the product: Honey B Healthy ?

:rolleyes:

I do not use it even though somewhere in my supplies I have an old bottle. The directions on my bottle are wrong and if you follow them you can kill your bees. A good friend did and killed a few hives. She started sending nasty notes to the supplier and ended up helping them to correct the labeling and test their products.
Jim Altmiller

I don't spend the money for it, but would use it during a build up flow. Using it during a dearth is a better guarantee of robbing than a boardman feeder.

Honey Bee Healthy is essential oils.  It will kill the beneficial bacteria in the gut of the bee and interfere with the fermentation of bee bread.

http://bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm#ecology

Never used it.

I used hbh years ago.  I was feeding sugar syrup via an in hive frame feeder.  I decided to add some hbh.  After I added hbh per directions the syrup consumption dwindled by half.  I have not used since.
Happy days.

I did use it for a while.  The first problem was that it set off massive robbing.  Later I became aware of the ecology of the colony and realized that killing off bacteria and yeast is a bad thing since the bacteria in the gut of the bee protects them from Nosema, EFB and AFB, among other things.  And bacteria and yeast are both necessary for the fermentation of bee bread.  Then there is the issue of disrupting the smells in the colony which is how a colony is organized.  Lemongrass oil (one of the ingredients in HBH) is a dead ringer for Nasanov pheromone.  And any strong smell disrupts the communication of the hive.  These smells and pheromones drive the feedback mechanisms of the colony.  When to feed brood, gather pollen etc.

http://bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm#smell

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 24, 2019, 06:23:28 AM
I do not use it even though somewhere in my supplies I have an old bottle. The directions on my bottle are wrong and if you follow them you can kill your bees. A good friend did and killed a few hives. She started sending nasty notes to the supplier and ended up helping them to correct the labeling and test their products.
Jim Altmiller

Can/will kill your bees?  Certainly, any detail about the mis-print and the remedy would be helpful.

It was not a miss print. The original directions made it too strong. Apparently they did not do much testing before putting it on the market. That is why they hired my friend to do the testing and feedback.
Jim Altmiller

Thank you guys for the great info.  I am getting that the trend seems to be of tried it and no longer use it.

I am asking because I have been getting some questions about it locally for spring syrup.  I did not have an answer as I have no experience with it other than I do mix some of it into pollen supplement patties.  Have never used it in syrup.

What I find interesting is the varied responses when mixing into syrup.  I am getting that it can easily do more harm than good?  So, what is considered the overdose mix rate of this stuff - where it switches from being healthful to being lethal?

Current printing off the maker's website says for each 1 Litre of syrup add from 5mL to 10mL of HBH ::  From 200 to 1 (5mL) to 100 to 1 (10mL).  Even richer, 50 to 1, if mixed as a drench.  That is really quite a broad range!  Seems to me there is a lot of room for error. Is this then one of those cases where you toss the instructions, hold your tongue to the left, tilt your head to the right, and pour to just the right amount of 'gloop' sound has come from the bottleneck?

In your experience, just how rich can the mix be before it starts causing harm?
What is the 'standard' mix ratio of this zoom juice that folks should use in syrup?

PS:  thank you M. Bush for your insightful comments and links to your site wrt this.

.

It increases the risk of robbing so even a small amount could be fatal. Once the bees associate the oder with sugar syrup they will follow it to any hive they can get in. I stopped using essential oils in syrup because it caused robbing and robbing makes hives abscond.

HBH is said and advertised as a feeding stimulant. Therefore it makes sense that there is potential for it to create a frenzy. What I was hoping for a bit more info on to understand and figure out is regarding Jims comment about causing harm to the bees by the contents. 

Setting aside the robbing battles for a moment.  Assume 1 isolated hive with no others for 30 miles around.
Is there something in the HBH that can be overdosed which harms / kills bees?  What is that threshold of mixing concentration?  Is there experience to be shared on how strong the mix can be made before the scales are tipped from being helpful to being harmful?

.

I bought some HBH years ago. Used it the first year and hadn't needed to use it for ten years because I always try to leave plenty of honey on for the winter, and I always had an abundance of cutout honey to feed. Sugar syrup feeding has never been part of my beekeeping. This fall, I miscalculated and found I had to feed - A LOT. 

I used HALF of what the directions indicated. The bees absolutely sucked it up. To avoid robbing, I only feed at sundown.  I do the same with cutout honey placed in styrofoam meat trays. I use quart baggie feeders on top of the inner cover surrounded by a feeding shim/super. (Too many accidents with 1 gallon zip locks.)

Thank you, Michael Bush on your comments regarding how HBH affects bee physiology.  It is a serious matter to consider.  However, since I seldom feed, I'll continue to use HBH, if I ever need to feed in the future.

A side note: I found that mold will not form in syrup containing HBH. I had two buckets of syrup; one with and one without HBH.  Mold was only forming in the one without.  I added HBH to it and the next day the mold was gone.

>I found that mold will not form in syrup containing HBH

Because HBH is antimicrobial.

From what I understand, HBH is primarily essential oils? There are bee breeders that use essential oils and swear by them, but at the same time add a pollen substitute which replaces the enzymes lost in the gut and thus are replenished. Two of these breeders have told me this process almost completely eliminates the nosema of the gut. They also mix their own not adding the Lemongrass which leads to robbing. I followed their advise this past fall, winter, and early spring and had no outward sign of nosema and my hives were PACKED with bees early!

Hey, Ben, how about posting your recipe for mixing your own.

Quote from: Michael Bush on April 29, 2019, 10:27:07 AM
>I found that mold will not form in syrup containing HBH

Because HBH is antimicrobial.

HP, I googled HBH.  I could not determine the bonafide ingredients although there are many sites claiming the recipe.  The fella, Bob and his wife mfg the HBH and are not about to list the ingredients except for essential oils.  I did read a letter from Bob to researchers where he included wintergreen oil as an ingredient.

From 2Sox: HBH inhibits mold, from M. Bush anti microbial are included.  2Sox appears to substantiate what M. Bush states.

Mold inhibitors and wintergreen oil are not friendly to the microbes in the bees gut.  As M. Bush explained in some detail, the gut bacteria are necessary for health of the honey bee.

Consider the following:

The honey bees gut contains nutrients, warmth, and moisture.  Whenever all three are present: food water and warmth; BACTERIA FLOURISH.  There are two choices here for bacteria;

1.  Bacteria that weaken or kill,
2.  Bacteria that coexist and actually benefit the host, these are probiotic or good bacteria.

In the intestines there is always a constant battle every second of the day between these two types of bacteria.  The good bacteria are essential for life as the good bacteria actually inhibit the bad bacteria.  What I find interesting is the good bacteria are the same in humans as well as honeybees: lactobacillis and Bifido bacteria.  Bifido was first isolated from human beast milk.  Bifido keeps us all in good shape.  When Bifido are hindered by whatever; antibiotics, evergreen oil, wine or beer in excess, then frequent unpleasant trips to the bathroom evolve as the bad bacteria gain a foothold in the gut.  In short, Bifido bacteria prevents the Hershey squirts or dysentery as it is called in honeybees.

The big question, does HBH inhibit Bifido?  Well,,, if HBH inhibits mold per 2Sox and contains antimicrobials per Bush, then on a more likely than not basis HBH would to some degree be detrimental toward Bifido in the honeybee gut.

M. Bush explained well on his earlier post at 10:32 am.

Disclaimer: I was a consultant for a California firm in 2018 producing honeybee probiotics and advised  the specific bacteria species for honeybee probiotics which should be in distribution this day.
Bifidobacteriaceae regularis,  isolated from human breast milk, I hate using scientific names, therefore I used BIFIDO.

Cheers

Thank you Van for that! .

If the HBH mix kills micro-organisms, then perhaps it can be hypothesized to have one of two effects.
1. Could make sick bees healthy. If the balance is towards the bad microbes, then a dose of HBH that wipes the guts clean should be helpful.
2. Could make healthy bees sick.  If the balance is to the good microbes a dose of HBH may knock the bee guts system out of wack. Thus making room for the bad microbes to get the upper cilia(?).

Another way of looking at it may be as dosing with HBH could work as a gut system reset, would it not?  The question then is how to re-establish the probiotics faster than the negative microbes can? Humans will eat a lot of yogurt and cheese after heavy treatments. If bees have the same beneficial microbes, maybe the thing to do after too much HBH is to put a glob of yogurt in the hive?

Based on all the highly respected comments on this;  the learned approach to take for HBH has to be this  :  if the bees are healthy, leave well enough alone.  If the bees are sickly, a dose of HBH may help them clear it up.  The benefit may be only temporary until the gut flora returns to balance or imbalance, whichever the case may be.  Or maybe the HBH will just kill your bees if they are already too sick to survive the treatment.

While waiting for this thread to develop, I experimented by trying HBH in the syrup mix on three hives in full spring buildup mode here.  Their intake went from 1/2-3/4 gallon a day without HBH to Zero gallon a day with HBH.  Guess that means my bees either did not like the stuff at all or perhaps I just mixed to too strong at per instructions 10mL/L.  Maybe 2mL/L is the best point.

All the above comments and considerations has put me firmly in the same camp as the other learned fellows here who replied.  A summary statement on this would sound something like:
Approach use of HBH as a treatment to address a problem. Think of it as a medication. If there is not a problem then do not use it. Do not use it as a general good todo thing as advertised.

Concur?

Sorry, I don?t really have anything very constructive to add, but I?m loving the ?bad microbes getting the upper cilia? part. That is riotously funny to me.  :cheesy:

I got sucked into HBH for my packages, but I don?t use it anymore because it?s expensive and I don?t need it. 

>From what I understand, HBH is primarily essential oils?

Ingredients: Sucrose, Water, Spearmint Oil, Lemongrass Oil, Lecithin.

>It is Lemongrass essential oil,  There are bee breeders that use essential oils and swear by them, but at the same time add a pollen substitute which replaces the enzymes lost in the gut and thus are replenished. Two of these breeders have told me this process almost completely eliminates the nosema of the gut.

The microbes in the gut of the bee form the lining of the gut of the bee and protect them from Nosema.  Killing those microbes by feeding essential oil makes them susceptible to Nosema apis (nosema of the gut). 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0033188

But recently Nosema cerana (not nosema of the gut) has displaced Nosema apis.  So it's not so much of an issue.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5478366/

Yes, M. Bush, agreed on listed ingredients, however you need to add wintergreen oil to that list.  My info in from a letter from owner of hbh, Bob wrote.

If there is wintergreen in HBH it must have been added recently.  I have some and what I posted is the ingredient list.

Ok, thanks Bush.  The letter was written years ago, initially as question to researchers while Bob was compiling ingredients for HBH. 

There appears to be two products:
- Honey B Healthy - Original
- Honey B Healthy - Super Plus
Based on the cryptic info pages on their website, it may be the super plus that has the winter green or/and tea tree in it. ... ?

We should also be clear on which one was used in the experiences given to keep sorted.
It should be reasonable to expect different results if there are other or extra ingredients between them. For example, maybe the Original is fine and harmless and serves purpose as a feeding stimulant to get them to lap up the syrup. Where as the Super Plus with the added/other EO's could be the one that shows to be harsh, eradicates microbes, potentially kills bees, and alters the taste so much that it cuts feeding rate.
As example:  The one I tried recently which the bees did not like at all was the Super Plus. The bottle smelled like Pine-Sol with a hint of lemon in it.

https://www.honeybhealthy.com/products/

..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGbuE44BXqw

That definitely makes it clear that they prefer pure sugar water to HBH.
Jim Altmiller

Jim X2.

Thank HP for posting video.

Interesting??.Anybody want to buy the bottle I have left!

I have been told Tea Tree Oil is the main ingredient in (home made) bee healthy. So apparently my comments are mute. 😁. Interesting topic.

Quote from: iddee on April 29, 2019, 05:34:32 PM
Hey, Ben, how about posting your recipe for mixing your own.

Iddee, I got my recipe from Don the Fat Bee man, David at Barnyard Bees, and Joe May Bees. Each one has a slight difference in ingredients. Slight. I do not add lemongrass.  I add a tea spoon of tee tree oil. A tea spoon of wintergreen oil, and a tea spoon of spearmint oil to a cup or two of water. Put in a blender for five minutes. Add more water to equal a total of one quart. Mix again for a bit. I put one tablespoon of this mixture per-quart of sugar water. I add this before I mix the sugar water together so I will get a good mix. This will go a long way.  Smells good too!

Quote from: Ben Framed on April 30, 2019, 07:33:38 PM
I have been told Tea Tree Oil is the main ingredient in (home made) bee healthy. So apparently my comments are mute. 😁. Interesting topic.

As far as I know, tea tree oil is on of the main ingredients in Bee quick and the bees hate it. The other ingredients are alcohol and almond extract. I think the almond extract is to make it smell good to us and hide the tea tree oil (in order to keep us DYI beekeepers from figuring it out and making our own).

Jim Altmiller

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 30, 2019, 08:59:47 PM

Quote from: Ben Framed on April 30, 2019, 07:33:38 PM
I have been told Tea Tree Oil is the main ingredient in (home made) bee healthy. So apparently my comments are mute. 😁. Interesting topic.

As far as I know, tea tree oil is on of the main ingredients in Bee quick and the bees hate it. The other ingredients are alcohol and almond extract. I think the almond extract is to make it smell good to us and hide the tea tree oil (in order to keep us DYI beekeepers from figuring it out and making our own).

Jim Altmiller

Tea Tree alone smells pretty bad to me also.

Mr Claude,
I didn't read the complete article but here is an example of just one portion of this article about the benefit of essential oils for bees.  If you are interested you can look it up or contact the researcher at the address that I have provided at the very bottom. And as you say, I hope that helps.   :grin:
Phillip

https://beeworks.com/ Research Paper??Using Essential Oils.
Jim Amrine, Bob Noel, Harry Mallow, Terry Stasny, Robert Skidmore (Last Updated: December 30, 1996)
Contents
Essential Oils have Two Modes of Action
Revised Dosages Used in Experimental Treatments

Timing of Treatments
Recent Findings
Comments on Varroatosis
Comments on Natural Resistance to Varroatosis
EPA Exemption of Essential Oils
Notes about tracheal mites
We have found that several essential oils can either kill, or adversely affect varroa mites.
Essential Oils have Two Modes of Action:
1) Toxicity by direct contact:
When varroa mites contact essential oils such as wintergreen, patchouli, tea tree oil, et al., mixed into oil or grease, they are killed on contact?usually within a few minutes.
2) Impaired reproduction via feeding syrups containing essential oils:
When varroa mites feed on larvae that contain essential oils, their reproduction is interrupted. If the oil is strong enough, the females are unable to lay eggs. If the oils are in lower concentration, eggs
are layed, but development of immature mites is delayed; young mites do not reach maturity before the bees emerge from the cell; consequently, the immature mites die.

James W. Amrine, Jr.
Division of Plant and Soil Sciences,
P. O. Box 6108, West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26505-6108 USA
Telephone: 304-293-6023
E-mail: [email protected]

While we are on the subject.  I highly suggest and recommend every beekeeper read the following article featuring Randy Oliver, with a very detailed layout on the subject of Nosema, in which he details identifying this dread. Along with good pictures.  Randys article was just revised and updated this past March. 
Phillip

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-13-simple-microscopy-of-nosema/