Thymol

I put thymol crystals on two of my hives today. One was a Cherry's colony (one of the swarms I picked at the start of the season). They had made a fair amount of honey but I spotted a bee with virtually no wings and that is an indication that the mite levels are getting too high. I took off the suppers and have now extracted the capped honey. The thymol may put the queen off laying for a few weeks but the bees will all be much happier without so many mites.

The other was Bill's greengage hive.