Thymol

[Axtmann]

Ian I hope I could give you an idea
http://www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/PENotes/VarroaTreatment.htm#Thymol

The guy made a mistake, he placed in an old honey jar lid and IÂ’m sure the bees removed the crystals outside the hive. ThatÂ’s why he needs one teaspoon per week. IÂ’m using a little tray that I got from a company in your country. If the tray is filled up there is enough Thymol for at least 5 to 6 weeks and the bees canÂ’t get the crystals.

This system is much better than the fine Thymol powder. You have to put the filled tray in the hive and thatÂ’s it. There is no grinder for the crystal necessary because the tray has a fine screen and the bees canÂ’t reach the Thymol crystals.

Thymol is not toxic to the bees but it kills the Trachea mites and the Varroa. When treating with Thymol you should reduce the entrance. The Thymol molecules have to fill up the whole hive before it starts killing the mites. Bees donÂ’t like the smell and starting fanning like hell to get rid of that stuff.

I treat my colonies in the brood free time with an oxalic acid vaporizer and have no problems with mites. Only with some lazy beekeepers in my neighbourhood, I had an unbelievable reification in several of my colonies. ThatÂ’s one reason why IÂ’m using the oxalic acid during the winter.
http://www.honeycouncil.ca/users/folder.asp?FolderID=1110 http://www.apis.admin.ch/english/pdf/Varroa/Thymovar_e.pdf

You can use this stuff too (Apiguard, Apilife VAR,Thymovar) but each treatment cost you approx 10 times more than the Thymol crystals ..........AND THE EFFECT IS ABSOLUTELY THE SAME!!!

[mikeaegina]

I would like to ask you what's the price of thymol crystals in your country. Here in Greece cost me 0.6 euro per gram. I think that it's a bit expensive or not?

[Axtmann]

I think we paid for 1000 grams Thymol 48, -- Euro and for 1000 grams Oxalic acid 12, -- Euro.
The Thymol is enough for approx 160 to 180 colonies and the Oxalic acid is for 500 treatments. We split that with several beekeepers in our bee club.

[dickm]

Thanks for the information. Does anyone know where one can buy the crystals in the US. What is that little box you put it in Axtmann? Who supplies it?

Thanks,

Dickm

[Axtmann]

Dickm I got the trays here from a supplier when I ordered an oxalic acid vaporizer. Ask the vaporizer manufacturer in your country they selling the trays. Here it cost 1.50 € each and comes in a set of two. You need one tray for a small and two for a strong colony. If your not sure you also can fill the second tray half only.
I heard from the supplier that they will have it on there website for the next spring.

[mikeaegina]

Thank you very much. That means that i have to find somebody else to buy thymol. Price for oxalic acid in Athens is 9 Euro per kg.

[Kurt Bower]

Mikeaegina:
I notice that you are from Greece. I visited a few years ago and loved it there.
Just curious, are you a hobby beekeeper?
Is it possible to make a living at beekeeping in Greece?
Thanks,
Kurt

[Kurt Bower]

Dickm:
The thymol crystals can be purchased from various suppliers in the United States. Do a search for Thymol crystals or a variation of the same. Be careful of pricing as some companies want to gouge you.
I orderd 1 pound of thymol crystals from Conservators Emporium for about $48 including shipping. Their web site is currently down, but their phone # is 775-852-0404.
Best regards,
Kurt

[John Buckner]

I got my Thymol from the site below for $14.00 plus $6.95 shipping. I made up the cords but don't know when to start using them and for how long. I need a plan.

Hope this helps.
www.medichest.com (http://www.medichest.com)


[This message has been edited by John Buckner (edited October 21, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by John Buckner (edited October 21, 2003).]

[Ian]

From what I understand, the treatment stays in the hive long after application. So it must be applied in the fall to prevent chance of contaminating the honey. Are there any negative effects due to residue in the hive to the honeybees on there wintering success. I winter in a very cold and long winter.

Ian

[This message has been edited by Ian (edited October 21, 2003).]

[loggermike]

From the Canadian study referenced above:"Apiguard and Apilife VAR both gave us Varroa control equal to Apistan. Apiguard treated colonies had 3/4 less brood and adult bee populations in early April compared to Apistan treated colonies. Also, Apilife VAR colonies treated with 3 tablets, instead of 2 tablets, had only somewhat more than half brood than Apistan treated colonies. Despite observing differences in April, all of the treated colonies developed normally with no apparent differences by early May."I find that kinda scary.That could wipe you out for early orchard pollination.

[Ian]

Do you find these same results Axtmann?

Ian

[Axtmann]

Ian
Not yet, but I keep an eye on it next spring. If I find this out I go for oxalic acid only, IÂ’m not staying on one leg.

[mikeaegina]

Kurt Bower, it's difficult to have beekeeping
as major job for living here in Greece. And i think same thing happens everywhere.Reasons are many and everybody who's in knows them.
If you have 500+ hives you can have a good profit.

[Ian]

Why do you treat with Oxalic acid and not just with formic acid. The two chemicals are very similar. In fact, oxalic acid when it oxidizes MAKES formic acid. And in my opinion Formic is alot easier on the bees.
By heating Oxalic Acid crystals superheated vapor particles are sent throughout the hive. The vapourized oxalic acid particals float around the hive land on things, and "react" with them, or otherwise burn the heck out of whatever it touches both
hot AND and acid, so it is two burns in one. Much worse than treatment with formic acid, there are no superheated acid vapors. It works at ambient temperatures. Treatment for formic are avaliable now that send a consistant low dose over a longer period of time, besides using the blast method.

Ian


[This message has been edited by Ian (edited November 16, 2003).]

[Axtmann]

Ian
You probably donÂ’t understand the different between both treatments. Yes they are both natural acids and both very good treatments against the Varroa.

1. Can you treat your bees with formic acid during the winter when bees have no brood? Answer is - NO!
2. How can you control the formic acid evaporation in your hives when temperatures going up and down (few days 18º C than several days up to 35ºC)? Answer - almost not possible or lots of work!
Too much formic acid evaporate in a short time it kills bees and queen, not enough acid for several days the treatment has not the effect you need.
Have you ever used the formic with an evaporator in your colonies? Beekeepers here working with formic and it is an approved treatment. But they all have to calculate a cretin percentage on losses of queens.

You’re right with your statement about oxalic acid. When using the electric vaporizer there is a problem with the temperature in the hives. During the 4-5 minutes the electric one is connected to the battery it creates up to more than 300ºC on the pan. The OA is boiling before evaporation and a certain amount splashed into the hive. Therefore the electric evaporator has a sheet metal behind the heat pan that holds the pan above the wood and should prevent from burning.
Disadvantage;
1. If bees in a cluster the heat stimulate and they sometime open the cluster.
2. The heat melts some wax in the frames close to the heat pan.
3. Several hives already had smoke from burning wood and the bees are killed from smoke when in cluster. They canÂ’t fan the smoke out.
4. Not possible to use in Styrofoam hives.


Go to some German groups and you will find enough beekeepers ready to sell you their electric vaporizer.
As I said before I work with a propane-heated vaporizer outside the hives and blow the fog (with a pumped up new garden sprayer) slowly into the hives. I can see through clear hose when the evaporation starts and when the work is don.
The fog has temperature approx 35ºC when using a 60cm long hose and there is no problem with my bees or with the hives.

There are no superheated acid vapours like you said! There a no particle floating around in the hive, the OA vapour is like fog. If youÂ’re staying in fog, have you seen particle floating around you?

[Axtmann]

To John Buckner

John you donÂ’t need a cord to apply the Thymol into your colonies. On the English website from the vaporizer is a new page about Thymol.

I got a few trays from the distributor here in Germany early summer, works fine with me. You can fill the trays without removing the screen. With the Thymol crystals you can treat at least 10 colonies for the price you have to pay for 1 treatment with Apiguard. (ThatÂ’s what we have to pay for here)
No different in the efficiency.

[Ian]

>>How can you control the formic acid evaporation in your hives when temperatures going up and down (few days 18º C than several days up to 35ºC)? Answer - almost not possible or lots of work!
Too much formic acid evaporate in a short time it kills bees and queen, not enough acid for several days the treatment has not the effect you need.

I have not used this treatment yet but I think I will try it out next spring, it sounds promising. Its called MiteGone,. Its cheap, easy to administer, easy on the bees, pushing fool proof and very effective against mites. The big disadvantage is working with the Formic acid.
March-May, outside temperatures ranges between minus 5 degrees and 28 degrees C (20-83 degrees F) and the humidity varies between 20 to 90%. Inside the hive the bees usually maintain favorable temperature and humidity and will keep the temperature between 22-26 degrees C (70-80 degrees F) and a humidity of 55%.
The formic is administered by a pad, with zillions of capillary tubes in the direction of the length of the pad. When the pad is cut in half, or at the end, the tubes and evaporating surface are exposed. The pads are placed in the beespace on the outside of the last frame. Hung vertically, the capillaries will keep the liquid in the pad without dripping and gravity will pull down the acid to replace acid evaporated at the bottom. Under controlled conditions of 24 degrees C and 55% humidity, a four inch wide pad will emit six grams of acid a day. At 65% solution this dose it is well under the leathal dose of the bees and very little queen losses are found. I think there is a 21 day and a 42 day treatment depending on how long you keep the pad.
I think this treatment is suppiour to the formic blast treatments.
After looking at this treatment, the only real advantage I can see for Oxalic acid is not having to handle the formic acid between the yards.

Ian



[This message has been edited by Ian (edited November 16, 2003).]

[Ian]

>>Can you treat your bees with formic acid during the winter when bees have no brood? Answer is - NO!

Just another thought of mine. Why do you treat during the winter. It is not the mites on the bees that kill the colony, its the mite damage to the young wintering bees that kills the colony. One step at a time, you must get the hive to early spring so they can start brooding. For a fall treatment to be effective, you have to treat at least a cycle and a half before the bees prepare for winter confinement. You must prevent the mites from entering the cell and damaging the bee. If your hives have a mite problem, your young wintering bees will already be damaged by the time you late fall treat with Oxalicacid.
You will have weak stressed hives come next spring anyway and wasted effort

Ian

[This message has been edited by Ian (edited November 17, 2003).]

[John Buckner]

Hi Folks.

John you donÂ’t need a cord to apply the Thymol into your colonies.

Axtmann, Thanks for the info. I am going to order a vaporizer from those people. I already have about 20 Kgs. of oxalic acid which I have use to clean mineral specimens,so why not give it a try? I think I will stick with the cords,at least for one more season.

I have 5 hives and they seem pretty strong. I am feeding 2:1 sugar syrup. I have 4 - 22 inch FGMO/Thymol cords on all hives.
I took a 24 hr mite count today and here's the results. # 1 through # 5 had, 3, 1, 13, 5 and 4 respectfully. Two had less and two had more and the other was the same as last week. As soon as I get the vaporizer, I will remove the cords,stop feeding,treat with OA vapor and leave blue shop towels soaked in FGMO on the bars over winter. When Spring comes,before brood rearing starts to progress, I plan to use the OA vaporizer first then FGMO fogging with cords. I will remove the thymol cords when I put on supers and then use cords without thymol. I plan to fog once a week and change cords every two weeks. I should know by August if this is going to work for me.

I believe it depends a lot on the location of your hives,wheather or not you get a large mite population.
I know guys in our club that only fog once every two weeks and use no cords at all and they say FGMO works for them.
I live in the mountains with woods all around and this may be one reason why mites are so hard to control.
Each spring, mite infested colonies swarm from countless bee trees and from local beekeepers hives that don't medicate.
I may be wrong but there has to be a reason why FGMO works so well for some people who only do half the job and not as well for others who follow the procedure to the letter.

I hope some of you will jump in on this.
I will appreciate your thoughts and comments.

[Michael Bush]

I am only doing the FGMO fog and small cell. The small cell may be part of the reason for sucess but some of the hives I haven't got around to regressing yet and they are also doing well.

When I bought some hives this spring the seller was only using FGMO fog also. The bees were doing well then.

Maybe some of the factors are climatic and some may be the environment (infested bees in the area etc.).

I do know that my bees have mites, so it's not like they aren't dealing with them, but the FGMO fog seems to keep it under control.

[Axtmann]

John Bruckner

With you Oxalic Acid you can treat 20000 colonies one time.

At this time of the year you can remove the cord they are totally useless. Thymol starts to evaporate when bees starting to breed and the temperature inside the hive goes up Thymol need at least 15º C / 59º F before it starts works.

With the right treatment you should not find any mites on the board in 24 hours. At the time I find maybe one Varroa in 3-4 weeks. With 13 in 24 hour your colony must have a few hundred mites left. If I use the mite calculator this hive should have approx 2600 mites. The colony with 5 mites per day has approx 1000 Varroa left. Remember 1 mite in January gives you 60 mites in fall without treatment. http://www.csl.gov.uk/science/organ/environ/bee/varroamodel/app.cfm

If you like to go for Thymol there some info on this site too. http://www.members.shaw.ca/orioleln

[swarm_trapper]

hey guys i was just looking through some things and noticed this post my questioon is can this be useed with the honey supers on (the thymol)thanks

[bjerm2]

Hi, I would not use thymol with the honey suppers on. The honey might get contaminated. I use FGMO only while the honey suppers are on the hives. Once they are off (spring and fall) I mix FGMO with thymol. Works great. I make the batch up in the spring, 25 grams in a pint of FGMO and keep using it till I need to replenish the fogger. When I replenish it with just FGMO then I start to put on the honey suppers. Usually on the third application of straight FGMO. I hope this helps.
Dan