esscential oils in sugar water

[zzzzzzzzpr]

ive been reading around here about putting esscential oils in sugar water and putting too much is bad.

how much is too much? i make a gallon at a time and 1 quart feeders. 5 drops in a feeder or something like that?

i went out today for my 1st inspection on my bees has been 3 days. only half quart was gone from 1 quart. not sure if thats normal or not.
we did have 1 day in there where it was 40f to 29f so i presume they didnt do much that day.

just hoping that esscential oils may help in getting them to drink it faster.

i did notice as well they are bring in pollen.

[Steel Tiger]

There are a ton of oils... and people use them for different reasons. Lemongrass to attract swarms, tea tree and several others to fight mites. I haven't heard of one to make bees eat more sugar water.
Although I'm using lemongrass oil to try to attract swarms, I'm not planning on introducing any type of essential oils to the hives themselves.

[Joe D]

I got some Lavender oil, and put a couple of drops in my sugar water sprayer.  Was going to give a shot to the wall of the supers to see if it would help on mites and SHBs in hive.  When I got ready to do an inspection decided not to use it and poured it out and rinsed out sprayer.



Joe

[tefer2]

Why not just buy some Honey b Healthy to add to your syrup?

[Michael Bush]

>how much is too much?

Any amount will disrupt, if not outright kill the microbes in the bees' guts that protect them from diseases:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0033188

[Nature Coast Beek]

A good University resource for essential oil usage and feeding as it relates to honey bees fromWVU.

[BAH]

Here is a list I found when I started to research essential oils.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Beekeeping/Guide_to_Essential_Oils
Make sure you are using the real stuff and not that aroma crap   :-X.
Also here is a recipe that is similar to Honey-B-Healthy.
http://www.gardenfork.tv/essential-oil-recipe-for-honeybees
Here is the Honey-B-Healthy Flyer with their promotions and ingredients.
http://www.bee-commerce.com/content/freedownloads/HoneyBHealthyInfo.pdf
Use at your own risk; It has been known to occasionally cause robbing behavior due to its great appeal to bees.
You can also use this natural formula instead of smoke for your bees, it has been said to calm them.
I have not sprayed my bees yet but will use it soon.
Read the links above :lol:
Essential oils are passed from feeding bees to other bees and larvae through trophallaxis. Essential oils thereby pass to the brood and poison any female Varroa that attempt to parasitically feed on the larva. Just one of the benefits I learned about. Also just to add I will be only feeding this to my bees once every 2-3 months and not during honey harvest.