Thymovar

01 · IT WORKS BY EVAPORATION

Not contact: an atmosphere

The wafers do not touch the bee — they release thymol as a vapour, and it is that vapour that acts inside the hive. Almost every management decision follows from this. It acts on phoretic mites, the ones travelling on adult bees, not on those protected inside a sealed cell. And one practical consequence that is easily overlooked: every time you open up, you lose vapour. You can open the hive during treatment, but the less you do it, the more you get from the product.

02 · WHICH HIVES IT WORKS IN

And why a closed-frame Layens is not one

Here is a criterion worth being clear about before buying. It works in Dadant and Langstroth, and also in Layens with open frames — that is, with a rebate in the top bar. We do not recommend it in closed-frame Layens, and the reason is that same evaporation: if the top bars close off the space above, the vapour cannot circulate over the frames and does not reach the colony as it should. It is not that the product is worse — it is that in that configuration it cannot do its job. Look at your frames' top bars before deciding.

03 · THYMOL AND HONEY

Supers for consumption come off

Thymol is aromatic, and that has a direct consequence for the harvest: during treatment there must be no supers holding honey destined for consumption, because it can transfer flavour to it. The way to work is the usual one — take the supers off before starting and put them back once the treatment has finished. That is why this kind of product normally slots in between the last harvest and preparing for winter.

THE LEAFLET SETS THE REGIME

We do not publish doses, the number of wafers per hive, intervals between applications or the temperature range for application: those figures are set by the medicine's current data sheet and leaflet, and in a product that works by evaporation the ambient temperature is decisive for it to work at all. For any doubt about what to treat, when, or the state of your apiary, consult your vet or your animal health association.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The pack contains 2 × 5 wafers, enough for 5 hives. As with all medicines, you will need to log in and your delivery address must be in Spain — otherwise the basket will not let you add it. And a management idea repeated by those with years behind them: alternating active substances between seasons is part of a sound control programme, because the same active repeated year after year makes life easy for the mite. Before and after, monitor: it is the only thing that will tell you whether the treatment did its job.