Home Brew Honey Bee Healthy

Want to make home-brew syrup supplement similar to the commercial product. Please read on. Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of “Honey B Healthy” and have used it for several years. I have gotten wonderful results with it. But last spring I found myself in need of some and short on time to order it and have it delivered. I had seen recipes for a home-brew version on the web several times so I thought, why not give it a shot. I am calling this my home-brew Honey Bee Healthy or “H-B-H-B-H.” I will probably continue to use the commercially available product for my bees. But this recipe makes more than enough to last a while, so I will be using my home-brew this spring. Since I like to avoid using smoke as much as possible, this solution can be a great addition to your syrup for calming bees.

You should be able to find nearly everything you need locally, especially if you have a health food store nearby. If not all the ingredients are available on the internet from a variety of suppliers. I prefer to shop locally when I can and have a great small  health food store in the next town. Finding the essential oils was not that difficult of an issue. Several stores nearby carried high quality food grade essential oils. So picking up the Spearmint and Lemongrass oils was not too hard. The Lecithin Granules were another story. That local health food store was closed when I wanted to pick up my ingredients and the other stores I checked did not have them. A stop the next morning in at the local health food store proved successful and finally I had everything I needed to try my home-brew recipe.

Since you are feeding this to your bees you definitely want to use quality ingredients for this project. Don’t go cheap on this one. Your bees deserve the highest quality and you want the benefits of using this in your bee feed.

The recipe I used is listed below. Let me give you one hint to make your life easier and the concoction better. The Lecithin Granules do not dissolve very easy. In fact I tried several different ideas to do so. I added them to boiling water and tried to crush them into a powder like substance.  After that did not work there were other ideas to try to get them to dissolve. All with no luck. The trick is to let them soak in room temperature to warm water for at least a couple of hours. Over night would be even better. This should help to get them to dissolve and give you a good end product. At the end of the “brewing” process you can blend the solution in a blended to make sure everything is mixed well.

“Home Brew Honey Bee Healthy”

5 cups Water
2 1/2 pounds Sugar
1/8 tsp. Lecithin Granules (used as an emulsifier)
15 drops Spearmint Oil
15 drops Lemongrass Oil

1. Bring the water to a boil and integrate the sugar until dissolved.
2. Once the sugar is dissolved remove the mixture from the heat and add the lecithin and the essential oils.
3. Stir until everything is evenly distributed.
4. Let solution cool
5. Place in a blender and blend for 2 to 4 minutes

The completed solution should have a strong scent and not be left open around bees.

Makes 2 quarts of solution.

Recommended mixing rate in syrup:

For syrup feed: use 1 tsp per quart
For smoke substitute: use 4 tsp per quart

Good Luck and Happy Beekeeping