HONEY-B-HEALTHY is a honeybee feeding stimulant composed of lemongrass and spearmint oil concentrate. HONEY-B-HEALTHY helps promote healthy vigorous hives when used as a feeding stimulant. Use as a feeding stimulant for late winter, early spring, and during dearth's of nectar. Also add to your feeding mix to help build up packages, nucs and swarms.

HCBA Secretary-Treasurer, Steven Martin, is a registered dealer for HBH. If you are a current HCBA member, and you purchase your HBH through HCBA member Steven Martin, a portion of your purchase price will be rebated to the club to support ongoing HCBA activities. The price for a 16 oz bottle is $20 and is purchased via the first Buy Now button below. It will be delivered to you at the next HCBA meeting. If you require immediate shipping, the cost is $24 and you can make your purchase by using the lower Buy Now button. If you would prefer to have an invoice either emailed or mailed to you, just send an email to stevenmartin@frontiernet.net and request an invoice. Thank you for supporting the Hampshire County Beekeepers Association.

($20 per bottle - Delivered to you at the Next HCBA Meeting)

                     ($24 per bottle - Shipped to your address)
 

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

Natural, Organic Bee Medications

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.

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 helps promote healthy vigorous hives when used as a feeding stimulant. The 16 oz bottle makes up to 24 gallons of solution at one teaspoon (5ml) per quart of 1:1sucrose or fructose solution. The gallon container makes up to 192 gallons of feeding stimulant. For commercial use we recommend adding one quart of Honey-B-Healthy to a 55-gallon drum of 1:1 sugar syrup.

Use as a feeding stimulant for late winter, early spring, and during dearths of nectar. Also, add to your feeding mix to help build up packages, nucs and swarms.

Helpful Benefits

  • Helps preserve feeding solutions by helping to keep feeding jars clean

  • Use as a feeding stimulant for late winter, early spring, and during dearths of nectar.

  • Calms bees when used as a spray.

  • When introducing new queens helps prevent balling when sprayed on caged queen and bees.

  • Spraying bees helps prevent fighting when combining nucs, swarms and colonies.

  • When sprayed on new foundation helps encourage the bees to draw out the new comb foundation.

Helps promote healthy, vigorous hives. The 16 oz. Bottle makes up to 24 gallons of solution at one teaspoon (5ml) or 12 gallons at two teaspoons (10ml) per quart of 1:1sucrose or fructose solution. This recommended one-teaspoon dose could be increased to two-teaspoons for increased consumption. Use as a feeding stimulant for late winter, early spring, fall feedings and dearths of nectar. Furthermore, add to your feeding mix to help build up packages nucs and swarms. 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.

The concentrate can be mixed in syrup solutions ahead of time and kept in tightly sealed containers and fed when needed. Also, adding a little Honey-B-Healthy along with a little honey to a one pound grease patty helps in the consumption of the patties by the bees.

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 new-caged queens, they become calm and all having the same natural odor.

Feeding Honey-B-Healthy

Use Honey-B-Healthy in early spring and during periods when no nectar is available and to build up packages, nucs ind swarms. It is made with lecithin, sodium lauryl sulfate, water, lemongrass oil, and spearmint oil. Two teaspoonfuls in a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup delivers a total of one cc of both essential oils; the essential oils are evenly distributed throughout the syrup. Honey-B-Healthy helps produce rapid build up of bees when used as a feeding stimulant. In addition, using 4 teaspoons in a quart of one to one sugar water of Honey-B-Healthy as a spray instead of smoke helps calm the bees, and spraying caged new queens and bees with Honey-B-Healthy helps with queen acceptance during cage introduction and reduces balling during direct release when sprayed on new queen and bees. It also helps to reduce stings: mix a little on your hands and watch the difference in bee behavior-very few or no stings at all. Acts as a bee calmer when sprayed on the bees and helps prevent fighting when combining nucs, swarms and colonies. When sprayed on new foundation helps encourage the bees to draw out new comb or plastic comb.

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.