bee pattie and teatree oil

[covenanter]

i have been given a recipe for bee feeding called grease pattie it consists of sugar,mineral salts.vegetable shortening,and tee tree oil or wintergreen oil .after looking at the teatree oil bottle it states for external use only and must not be ingested.is it safe to add it to bee feeds .it is supposed to be lethal for varroa mites but is it ok for my bees.Ihope someone can help me.

 

[oliver90owner]

I would follow the written advice. Can't be wrong(?) if you do that.

 

[covenanter]

thanks oliver90 but that still doesnt answer my question

 

[REDWOOD]

It would be a better if we could see your recipe with quantities

 

[hiveabee]

This is another recipe
http://www.honeybeesuite.com/tag/grease-patties/

 

[REDWOOD]

Something wrong there, a single tea spoon 5ml of wintergreen oil is the equivalent to 23 aspirin tablets that will kill a human, in that recipe is says to use 2.2 oz which is 65ml or 13 tea spoons.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Something wrong there, a single tea spoon 5ml of wintergreen oil is the equivalent to 23 aspirin tablets that will kill a human, in that recipe is says to use 2.2 oz which is 65ml or 13 tea spoons.

Sounds about right for grease patties, similar effect to thymol gel, humans are different than bees, if we rolled in greasy thymol or wintergreen it would likely harm us, maybe kill us, but not much harm caused to bees, or say put a human in a very small place and sublimate oxalic acid, the human would not fare too well, but this causes few problems for a bee. Put a human in a large jar with lots of powdered sugar and shake them up and down vigorously, the sugar would most likely suffocate them, or the shaking would most likely kill them on its own, but again a bee is okay with this, there are many differences between insects and humans, and what can be food or treatment for one, can be lethal for the other.

 

[REDWOOD]

Nice one Pete, I can now stop scratching my head lol.

 

[Swarm]

Brings to mind a friend of mine who nearly lost his son through ingesting Wintergreen! Wasn't there a case of bees foraging on anti freeze?

 

[dpearce4]

the Austrians used to put antifreeze in wine to sweeten it in the early 1980s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_diethylene_glycol_wine_scandal

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Sounds about right for grease patties, similar effect to thymol gel, humans are different than bees, if we rolled in greasy thymol or wintergreen it would likely harm us, maybe kill us, but not much harm caused to bees, or say put a human in a very small place and sublimate oxalic acid, the human would not fare too well, but this causes few problems for a bee. Put a human in a large jar with lots of powdered sugar and shake them up and down vigorously, the sugar would most likely suffocate them, or the shaking would most likely kill them on its own, but again a bee is okay with this, there are many differences between insects and humans, and what can be food or treatment for one, can be lethal for the other.

Hahaha

 

[RosieMc]

This is another recipe
http://www.honeybeesuite.com/tag/grease-patties/

If you use honey, remember you should give it back to the hive it came from.

However, read this link regarding corn syrup
http://grist.org/news/entomologists-stop-feeding-corn-syrup-to-honeybees-duh/

 

[hiveabee]

If you use honey, remember you should give it back to the hive it came from.

Sorry forgot to mention that

 

[Gilberdyke John]

If you use honey, remember you should give it back to the hive it came from.

However, read this link regarding corn syrup
http://grist.org/news/entomologists-stop-feeding-corn-syrup-to-honeybees-duh/

Seems quite a slanted article written by the Beekeeper equivalent of a crusading vegan. In any case do many of the keepers outside America have access to corn syrup much less feed bees with it?
I was factory engineer for a glucose refinery for a number of years and the uk syrup industry had/has very little to do with the small consumer market. For small think buying batches of less than ten tonnes of tanker delivered bulk syrup.
It goes without saying Grist would not like potato starch based glucose either I suppose?

 

[madasafish]

Seems quite a slanted article written by the Beekeeper equivalent of a crusading vegan. In any case do many of the keepers outside America have access to corn syrup much less feed bees with it?

Err..
studies have shown he is probably correct

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-high-fructose-corn-syrup-tied-worldwide.html

and more.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/29/science/la-sci-sn-bee-collapse-20130429

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Err..
studies have shown he is probably correct

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-high-fructose-corn-syrup-tied-worldwide.html

and more.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/29/science/la-sci-sn-bee-collapse-20130429

Both references would seem to be a proliferation of the same origin but as I previously stated Corn Syrup is not generally available in manageable quantity to us and the question should be asked of UK beekeepers - do they use HFCS instead of Sucrose as feed? I strongly suspect a resounding no.
Perhaps the one bit common to all the references apart from judicious use of the word"may" is
"Taking away the honey to sell it, and feeding the bees high-fructose corn syrup instead, they claim, compromises their immune systems,"

That's us honey thieves bug****d then!

 

[covenanter]

grease patties

Thanks to all who replied to my post concerning grease patties.the answer was with the bees.I have 4 hives all the bees avoided them like the plague.so grease patties were consigned to compost heap cheers

 

[pargyle]

Thanks to all who replied to my post concerning grease patties.the answer was with the bees.I have 4 hives all the bees avoided them like the plague.so grease patties were consigned to compost heap cheers

Sensible bees then .... who says they have no intellect ?