Honey-B-Healthy® (HBH)

From 1995 until 2000, Amrine & Noel (2001) tested several essential oils in diluted honey and sugar syrup as feeding additives to honey bees, in order to attempt to control varroa mites, tracheal mites and to reverse the parasitic mite syndrome (PMS) seen in colonies infested with varroa mites. We found that several essential oils improved the health of the honey bee and reversed the symptoms of PMS. Especially useful were wintergreen, spearmint, patchouli, penny royal, tea tree and melaleuca oils. We decided to use oils and materials listed by the EPA that could be used for pest control activity, but which would not require registration as an acaricide and would be exempt from FIFRA (EPA 1994, EPA 1996).

We soon found that essential oils applied to sugar syrups did not mix with the aqueous solutions, so Bob Noel began looking for natural emulsifiers to allow uniform mixing of our selected essential oils in the syrups fed to honey bees. He found that lecithin was a good natural emulsifier. Following two years of field treatments of essential oils to honey bee hives with PMS, we observed that spearmint oil was excellent in reducing the PMS. However, honey bees did not accept the emulsified spearmint oil in 1:1 sugar syrup as well as other essential oils. So, we searched for an additive that would make the spearmint syrup attractive to honey bees. Lemongrass oil proved to be the key. The combination of these two oils with lecithin is the mixture that we now call Honey-B-Healthy®, and it has proved to be very effective at improving the health of the honey bee as well as having several other attributes.

Using Honey B Healthy® to feed and/or treat honey bees -

• We add 1 teaspoonful of HBH (ca 5 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup in order to stimulate brood rearing, pollen collection and to initiate early spring development in honey bee colonies. We start feeding in mid-February and continue until the bees have nectar coming in and they begin to stop feeding on the HBH.
• We add 2 teaspoonfuls of HBH (ca 10 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup in order to improve the health of the colony, in casees of dysentery, PMS, chalk brood or other ailments. The stronger dose of spearmint and lemongrass oils seems to give the honey bee brood and adults greater tolerance or resistance to the ailments.
• We add 4 teaspoonfuls of HBH (ca 20 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup when we introduce queens, treat with formic acid or cause other disruptive disturbances to the hive. This is particularly useful for queen introduction (especially for queens with low genetic relationship as Russian Queens) and for reducing defensive behavior in particularly defensive colonies. We shake or spray syrup onto the brood frames and onto the queen cage before releasing the queen. We seldom lose queens when this method is used.
• We apply some of the HBH syrup to our skin in order to reduce stinging behavior; when the tarsi touch the HBH, the bees fly off instead of stinging.
• We add about 20% of HBH to 85-100 ml of 50% formic acid during fumigation of brood chambers for varroa and tracheal mite control.
• We apply the stronger syrups to two colonies when combining them, in order to reduce defensive behavior of the workers.

We apply the stronger HBH to the brood nests of colonies when Bee-Go® is used for the honey harvest. Again, the HBH helps to reduce queen loss.

Honey-B-Healthy is available from several honey bee supply houses, and from many dealers in North America. Please visit www.rnoel.50megs.com/john/index.html  for a list of sources, and for more information on Honey-B-Healthy and to view images of the development this useful product.

Selected References:

Amrine, J. W. Jr., Noel, R. 2001. Controlling Honey Bee Mites with Essential Oils. Final Report to SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension, USDA), Project Number 98LNE98-105 (USDA 98-COOP-1-5985), 28 Dec 2001. 11pp.

EPA. 1994. (Environmental Protection Agency.) Inert ingredients in Pesticide Products; list of minimal risk inerts. Federal Register, Weds., Sep 28, 1994, Vol. 59, No. 187: 49400-49401. “Inert ingredients include acetic acid, beeswax, cinnamon, cloves, food, hydrogenated vegetable oil, linseed oil, mineral oil, olive oil, parafin wax, safflower oil, wintergreen oil, vanillin, xanthan gum, and many others, are of minimal risk” (and are also exempt from FIFRA, see EPA 1996).

EPA. 1996. (Environmental Protection Agency.) Exemption of certain pesticide substances from Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Requirements. Federal Register, Weds., Mar. 6, 1996, Vol. 61, No. 45: 8876-8879. “Cinnamon oil, citronella oil, lemongrass oil, mint and mint oil [eg., Patchouli oil], peppermint oil, and many others, are exempt from FIFRA.”