I really like Mann Lake’s Pro Health with essential oils. If you only have a couple of hives, a 16 oz bottle goes a long way. As we have always had a dozen or so hives and now have a good deal more hives to feed, we find Pro Health to be a little expensive.
I began searching for essential oil feed stimulant recipes on the net and working with them and find that this one works for us.
Bee Feed Stimulant
4 cups water
1/8 tsp. lecithin granules (emulsifier)
15 drops spearmint oil (3/4 ml)
15 drops lemongrass oil
2 tbsp. honey (Our own, not store bought)
2 ½ pounds of Sugar (5 cups)
Mix the water and lecithin and let stand for several hours.
Add the oils and honey and blend in a blender – thoroughly.
Add the sugar and continue to blend.
Keep refrigerated. Shake before using.
Use 1 ½ oz. per gallon of sugar syrup.
*experiment with 2 oz. per gallon
*experiment with wintergreen oil, tea tree oil, spearmint, and lemon grass
We have noticed this does not have the essential oil smell nearly as strong as Pro Health. I believe that essential oils protect the syrup from fermenting quickly, so we did an experiment. We used 6 one cup feeders in an open feeder**. In the first cup we used the sugar syrup made with the recipe and added one drop of lemon grass oil. In the second cup feeder we added 2 drops of lemon grass oil and so on. We set the feeder in an old hive box where we open feed, so the bees knew to come to it. The next morning there was an obvious difference! The bees were empting the cups with only 1 and 2 drops while the cup with 6 drops is still full.
The obvious takeaway is that you can add too much essential oil.
We use this formula for in hive feeders and we also open feed.
Important **We don’t open feed near the colonies. Our feeder is about 400′ away from any hive. Open feeding near colonies will stimulate robbing.