Honey Bee Health With Herbs
Herbs helpful towards honey bee’s health
About me
The main drive to keep bees was to support a few bees in an ever increasingly toxic and habit shrinking environment
I’ve kept 2 colonies of bees in top bar hives for 8 years and used no chemicals
My favourite honey is clover honey that is set and a bit crystallised, apart from Lime flowers which I loved from sommelier’s tastings.
Chloe Bruce M.H., Ir Master
Herbalist qualifying in 1990 with the College of Herbs and Natural Healing. 1996 Wholistic Iridolgy.
(Magnified irises have lots of signs and patterns which give us clues about our constitutional traits and current health too.)
I like to see myself as a self healing coach.
I am a keen gardener and vaguely vegan.
2-Benefits of general health
Build physical strength .
Resistance to infections
Acheive this by: – varied diet, feed with candipolline gold and honey.
- control of acarians
Tonic for strong colonies
Add 3-4 drops of lemongrass and 3-4 drops of spearmint essential oils to 1 kg sugar : 1 litre water syrup.
Botanicals for varroa (acaricides)
Essential oil application
● Add 5-6 drops of thyme or lavender essential oil to 200ml of mineral oil. Lightly spray on bees
●Apiguard
Precautions with essential oils. Do not over dose or use before harvesting honey
Herbal leaves
Add a couple of fresh or dried mugwort leaves to fondant or syrup feed. Add dried leaves to smoker
Mugwort (Artemesia vulgaris)
Thyme (Thymus officinalis)
Bee Calm spray
Syrup 250ml sugar : 250ml water
500ml syrup : 16 drops essential oils.
Whisk water and 16 drops of your oil mix (Lemongrass and Spearmint essential oils) to emulsify it, it goes milky. Cool syrup and add to spray bottle with emulsified water / oils mix. Shake before use.
Lemongrass- smells like queen-calms and attracts bees
Spearmint- miticide; anti fungal, insecticide
Optional essential oil substitutes
Thyme- use half quantity, very strong antibacterial,fungal,miticide,insecticide
Wintergreen- antifungal; miticide;deters robbing insects, hive beetle, foul brood
Ti Tree- anti bacterial & fungal, insecticide, anti varroa
Lavender- anti bacterial, calming, insecticide
‘Just dig it farms’, USA use this instead of smoking the bees
so used for inspection, uniting, new frames, harvesting, new queen
● Does not taint honey
● Blocks pores of varroa shutting down nervous system
● Spray bees and inside hives walls. Do not over spray as left overs can go mouldy.
Smoking with dried herbs
Chaparelle /Creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) ref
Tansy ( Tanacetum vulgare), ,Smoking methods
Smoking method 1
I use a little tansy or chaperelle smoke or icing sugar on most
inspections. I haven’t noticed any unpleasant taint. Both herbs are
very bitter.
Smoking method 2
To minimise use of chaperelle while staying effective.
Remove queen for 10 days, so no eggs. Return queen. Wait 7 more days. On day 8 after queen is released, smoke with Chaparelle/ Creosote bush everyday for 7 days. This exposes all mites to the smoke; ref Top bar Beekeeping, Les Crowder & Heather Harrell.
No foundation hives
Bees build varying sized comb to fit the different sized brood. This allows less room for the varroa.
Varroa resistant bees
bees4life advise to use a wide gene pool
What are our preferences when selecting queen cells? consider introducing Russian and other varroa immune bees.
Other natural controls of varroa Ants and icing sugar
-Biological control
Formic Aid treatment or allowing ants to live with the bees?
Pseudoscorpions (chelifer cancroides,Ellingsenius fulleri / indicus.) feed on mites. Historically co habited bee hives in corners of rroughly cut wood. Now straight edges from sharp saws means they have lost their bee hive homes. Chelifer cancroides are easy to breed at 18C and harmless to humans.
-Sugar dusting
-Use a hairdresser’s powder puffer; ref; to puff icing sugar over the bees. Use puffed icing sugar instead of smoke to calm the bees also it gets the bees in the habit of cleaning each other.
-Mesh over the bars method to apply icing sugar.
N.B.Make your own icing sugar due to corn starch.
-Mineral oil with optional thyme and lavender essential oils
Bee gym
Control of tracheal mites
Menthol crystals
Start to melt at 70F/21C. Best at 80-85F/30C. If weather is this hot, when there is no honey flow put 15g
menthol crystals in 200mm x 200mm porous bag and leave over frames
In cooler climates make menthol fondant 1kg granulated sugar 500g vegetable shortening, 3g menthol crystals. Use before or after honey flow.
Menthol disturbs tracheal mite’s lifecycle as females can’t find /smell the young bees to lay eggs on. ref.Clemson bee education
Caution- use cautiously as it stops the bees being able to smell the queen.●
My Conclusion
Use Menthol crystals, 1 week; Thymol /Apiguard 2 weeks and Chaparelle smoking once during week 4.
Control of chalk brood
neem (Azadirachta Indica) juice, Apiguard14
Other uses for essential oil
Lemongrass- swarm lure sprinkle a few drops on frames with some honey inbait hive.
Cinnamon – sprinkle a few drops on exterior of hive and around ground and
legs/stand to deter insects and ants.
Peppermint – sprinkle a few drops on bee suit to deters bees
Lavender- sprinkle a few drops on bee suit to deters bees
Insect repellent with most essential oils covers human/ testosterone smell, which encourages bees to sting. Use on bee suit around armpits.
●BUG SPRAY from Backyard Beekeeping USA. In to 200Ml distilled water/witch hazel add some or all of these oils. Up to 100 drops of essential oils(8ml). Citronella, Myrtle(sweet), Lavender, Ti Tree, Lemon grass, Peppermint, Rosemary. Shake before use, or whizz to emulsify. Spray sparingly in hives and on bees.
Helpful herbs’ mix has cedarwood and eucalyptus as well as citronella, tea
tree, lavender and myrtle.
References
– Candipolleine gold. Bee suppliers. Beckys Beezz etc
– Chaparelle. Available online, various uk suppliers.
– Top-Bar Beekeeping, Les Crowder & Heather Harrell
https://bees4life.org/bee-extinction/solutions/sustainable
beekeeping/natural-treatments-in-bee-hives
Refillable Talc Fiber Blower Puffer Barbers Hairdressers Talcum
Spray Bot-QV on eBay!
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/beekeepers/fact-sheets
publications/tracheal-mite-honey-bee.html#:~:text=discolored%20and
%20darkened.-,Control,the%20bees%20at%20certain%20temperatures. Natural products smoke and its effect on Acarapis woodi and
honey bees. An interesting study https://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/2004/04/M4016.pdf
Throughout – The Barefoot bee keeper, Phillip Chandlerindex