Honey-B-Healthy - Beekeeping Supplies Protective Clothing Beekeeping Equipment

What is Honey-B-Healthy,
and how does it work?

Honey-B-Healthy

Honey-B-Healthy (HBH) is a honeybee feeding stimulant that contains essential oils, such as lemongrass and spearmint oil. HBH helps promote healthy, vigorous hives. It may be used as a feeding stimulant (in sugar syrup) for late winter, early spring, and during dearths of nectar. You may also add HBH to your feeding mix to help build up packages, nucs and swarms.
Application
Use as a feeding stimulant for late winter, early spring, and during nectar dearth. Also, add to your feeding mix to help build up packages, nucs and swarms.
The 16 oz. bottle makes up to 24 gallons of full-strength syrup solution (one teaspoon [5ml] per quart).

Lemongrass oil contains some of the same natural pheromones that bees use to attract workers, such as geraniol. When this oil is applied to the bees and newly-caged queens, they become calm, all having the same natural odor.

HBH concentrate can be mixed in syrup solutions ahead of time and kept in tightly sealed containers, feeding the bees when needed. Some beekeepers add some Honey-B-Healthy along with a little honey to their grease patties, which helps in the consumption of the patties by the bees.
Essential oils are volatile and may evaporate from open containers. We suggest keeping the concentrate and solution mix tightly sealed when kept for extended periods of time.
Honey-B-Healthy can cause robbing during times of extreme dearths of nectar, especially during the fall. If this occurs, we suggest feeding during evening, within the hive, and reduce the entrance to prevent robbers from entering.

Testimonials from Customers

"I fed Honey-B-Healthy to seven swarms during the spring of '99 and had never seen colonies build up so rapidly and draw out such beautiful comb. Also, the brood cappings were nicely rounded with a light color with healthy bees hatching."
Tom Sisler
Former Bee Inspector
Oldtown, MD, September 2000

"I ordinarily don't use smoke except when I encounter a colony which is excessively defensive. In this situation, I obtain better results with H-B-H syrup spray than with smoke. I ordinarily introduce queens with a Thurber Long Cage, but when I used direct introduction with H-B-H syrup spray, the queen was accepted immediately."
Dan Hendricks
Hobbyist Beekeeper
Western Washington State, November 2000

"I fed essential oils (wintergreen and spearmint) along with Apistan to colonies on the verge of collapse from Varroasis for 21 days. After the combination treatment the colonies were practically varroa free and were healthy."
Harry Mallow
Former Bee Inspector
Cumberland, MD, September 2000

"I really do believe in HBH along with regular use of wintergreen grease patties - they are the backbone on reviving and sustaining honey bees at my apiary here in the mountains of Maryland. They work wonders in maintaining healthy colonies. The HBH stimulates the colonies while the wintergreen grease patties control the mites."
Becky DeWitt
Kitzmiller, Maryland, December 2000

"Just a quick note to say all is now going well with my 10 hives, I had a huge problem when the farmers sprayed the rice fields, I lost so many bees, so I gave them emergency feeds with your Honey B Healthy...
The results were just amazing. I had an explosion of bees so much so that I had to split my original colonies! So a heart felt thank you."
Reverend Je Kan Adler-Collins MA PGCE
Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, April 2003

"I use the HBH at 1 teaspoon to a quart and find the bees readily draw out comb on plastic frames faster than they will on wax foundation fed regular sugar syrup. I also requeened a nasty hive of Buckfast and used HBH 4 teaspoons per quart to calm the hive and they accepted the new queen readily in direct release."
Jeff Longstaff
Forest, OH, December 2000

“I find that spraying the interior parts of a hive reduces by about half the amount of time it takes to get a swarm to voluntarily enter the hive.”
Fred C. Hollen
Waynesboro, Va June 2003

"I've started feeding again and have been using the HBH since about January 1, 2003. This winter is going well for my bees, and I'm pretty sure the HBH is a part of my wintering success. Last winter I started with 55 colonies and ended with 25 - a disaster. What's worse is that some of the 25 were so weak that they got taken over by Africanized bees. This year, I started with 42. I now have 44! 30 are 8-10 frames or better, which will enable me to rent them to the almonds for top dollar. The others are receiving weekly HBH and seem to be coming on strong.

The HBH has also been an advantage in requeening the Africanized colonies. It seems to calm them (a little, kind of, sort of...), but mostly it is beneficial in wiping out their pheromones. My take rate with these colonies introducing new Italian queens has been 100% when I use the HBH. I understand that this is way above normal; and might be an additional benefit of HBH. I normally introduce the queens indirectly in cages. I introduce the new queens at the same time I find and kill the old ones. I spray HBH (3-4 tsp per quart) on the queen cage, then on the frames of brood immediately on either side of where I place the cage, then a general blast in the upper and lower box. I have not lost a queen yet with this method.”
M Mosco
Vista, CA March 2003

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