Thymol

thymolbehandlung_20170128

In the 1990s, the Bee Research Centre took part in a screening programme testing the potential effectiveness of over 100 essential oils and essential oil components against the varroa mite. Although sage, hyssop and thyme oils proved interesting, only thymol has been used in acaricide products. Thymol treatments require little effort, and there are a variety of preparations on the market. The advantages and drawbacks of thymol use are listed in the articles "Apilife VAR: A new varroacide with thymol as the main ingredient" and "THYMOVAR for Varroa control".

Use of essential oils for the control of Varroa jacobsoni (Oud.) in honey bee colonies (PDF, 1 MB, 20.01.2017)
A. Imdorf, S. Bogdanov, R. Ibáñez Ochoa, N. W. Calderone (1999)

Publication List

Publication List

Publications Laura Stefan

Stefan L., Strebel S., Camp K.-H., Christinat S., Fossati D., Städeli C., Levy Häner L.
Multi-trait assessment of wheat variety mixtures performance and stability: Mixtures for the win!
European Journal of Agronomy, 164, 2025, Article 127504.

Stefan L., Sanchez-Martin J., Kurth T., Keller B., Herren G., Krattinger S. G., Strebel S., Ampuero S., Camp K.-H., Levy Häner L.
A genotype–phenotype approach to discriminate central European spelt landraces from modern wheat-spelt intercrosses in the Swiss context.
Euphytica, 220, (143), 2024, 1-16.

Stefan L., Fossati D., Camp K.-H., Pellet D., Foiada F., Levy Häner L.
Asynchrony is more important than genetic distance in driving yield stability in wheat variety mixtures.
Crop Science, 64, (1), 2024, 455-469.

Schöb C., Engbersen N., Lopez-Angulo J., Schmutz A., Stefan L.
Crop Diversity Experiment: Towards a mechanistic understanding of the benefits of species diversity in annual crop systems.
Journal of Plant Ecology, 16, (6), 2023, Article rtad016.

Levy Häner L., Strebel S., Herrera J. M., Burton A., Vuille-dit-Bille N., Stefan L., Pellet D.
Mögliche Auswirkungen der Absenkpfade auf den Ertrag und die Qualität von Schweizer Weizen.
Getreide, Mehl und Brot, 1, 2023, 20-22.

López-Angulo L., Stefan L., Engbersen N., Schöb C.
Ecological and evolutionary effects of crop diversity decrease yield variability.
Journal of Ecology, 111, (6), 2023, 1242-1253.

Levy Häner L., Strebel S., Stefan L., Burton A., Herrera J. M., Vuille-dit-Bille N., Schaad N., Pellet D.
Mögliche Auswirkungen der Absenkpfade auf den Ertrag und die Qualität von Schweizer Weizen.
In: Journée de la qualité 2022. 22. November, Publ. Swiss granum, Bern. 2022.
other Languages: french

Stefan L., Engbersen N., Schöb C.
Rapid transgenerational adaptation in response to intercropping reduces competition.
ELife, 13, (11), 2022, 1-53.

Stefan L.
Rapid transgenerational adaptation in response to intercropping benefits yield.
In: World Biodiversity Forum. 29. juin, Davos. 2022.

Engbersen N., Stefan L., Brooker R. , Schöb C.
Temporal dynamics of biodiversity effects and light-use-related traits in two intercropping systems.
Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment, 1, (1), 2022, 54-65.

Stefan L., Engbersen N. , Schöb C.
Using spatially-explicit plant competition models to optimise crop productivity in intercropped systems.
Basic and Applied Ecology, 63, 2022, 1-15.

Apilife VAR: A new varroacide with thymol as the main ingredient (PDF, 103 kB, 20.01.2017)
A. Imdorf, S. Bogdanov, V. Kilchenmann, C. Maquelin (1994)

"THYMOVAR" for Varroa control (PDF, 75 kB, 27.01.2017)
F. Bollhalder (1998)


Although the use of thymol leads to residues in the wax and honey, these are negligible from a toxicological viewpoint. Since about 2008 the use of thymol-based products has been declining in Switzerland, and beekeepers making use of these products have tended to experience greater winter losses than those using e.g. formic acid.

Thymol residues in wax and honey after Apilife VAR treatment (PDF, 757 kB, 14.09.2016)
S. Bogdanov, A. Imdorf, V. Kilchenmann (1998) 

https://www.agroscope.admin.ch/content/agroscope/en/home/themen/nutztiere/bienen/bienenkrankheiten/varroa/varroa-bekaempfung/thymol.exturl.html/aHR0cHM6Ly9pcmEuYWdyb3Njb3BlLmNoL2VuLVVTL1BhZ2UvUH/VibGlrYXRpb25zbGlzdGUvSW5kZXhNaXRhcmJlaXRlcj9hZ3Jv/c2NvcGVJZD0yMTc5NyZpc0RhdGVuUHVibGlrYXRpb25zbGlzdG/U9RmFsc2U=.html