[archiater]

I just discovered tansy. A plant used in the "old days" to repel ants, mosquitos was stuffed into mattresses, coffins, and hung on windowsills to keep bugs away. It does repel Japanese beetles, ants, potato bugs so i'm giving it a try.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tansy


I found a guy in RI that has the stuff growing wild in his yard. I am going to stuff a bunch of leaves and stems under the SBB and over the inner cover. I have two hives that are loaded with SHBs but that doesnt compare to a more controlled study on 50 hives.

 

[archiater]

Russell

In the link posted you will see their are health warnings associated with it. So i dont necessarily want the tansy nectar or pollen to get into the honey. Through word of mouth i was told to cut the flowers off and the stems and leaves with the oils in them worked fine in repelling ants. They reported it definitely did not repel the bees. I'll keep you posted but give me a PM when you post your results because i'm not always on beesource.

 

[archiater]

Hi Russell
I did my experiment with Tansy on my two hives with SHBs and they both failed. I put a fist sized bunch of tanzy flowers and stems rubberbanded together on the inner cover and in between frames in the first and second deeps.

First of all the bees didnt abscond but the tansy did drive them to the other side of the hive and off the inner cover. I put the bunch in the left side of the bottom deep and it drove them to the right side and the bunch i put in the 2nd deep on the right it drove them to the left side such that 1/2's of each box was untouched...completely clean with no brood, wax buildup, nothing! THe hive was still crawling with SHBs and very small SHB larvae.

I checked the bottom board insert to see if the tansy had any appreciable effect on varroa mites but the counts werent any greater or less than usual.

I didnt see any ants, moths or other insects in the hive though. I think the tansy may be effective in keeping them out but not the SHBs. Whats your website address so i can read your results? I will keep trying other herbs and flowers because i absolutely hate putting man-made chemicals into a hive.

Cheers