NZBF: Thyme oil - varroa mite

[Dansar]

Hello everyone !
I find myself in the same situation as you. I was disappointed by the effectiveness of a product anti-varroa that I used previously. Therefore, I prefer to turn to natural treatments, if possible.

I would like to know your experiences and recommendations regarding natural treatments to fight varroa mites. If any of you have used such methods before and had good results, I would love to hear more.

Thank you in advance for your precious help !

Cordially,
Gisele

Are you based in New Zealand?

 

[Dennis Crowley]

Natural products are unsafe because people think they are safe; used without close watching or monitoring they will kill your hive quicker than so-called chemical treatments; remember, natural treatments are just different chemicals. Whatever you use, keep a bloody good eye on it.

 

[John B]

I am all in favour of people experimenting with varoa control. One day someone will come up with something useful although there are a lot of so-called organic treatments that either don't work or only work under very specific conditions. Some of them are far more toxic to the bees than conventional chemical treatments. Unfortunately our conventional treatments are not working as well as they used to partly because of resistance and also I think because of the buildup of viruses which means that it now takes far fewer varoa to kill a hive than it used to.
Breeding hives that are resistant to varoa is probably the only long-term solution but until everybody does it, given the free mating habits of honeybees is very hard for anyone to make any real gains.