Thymol

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)

Ecological–Economic Modelling of Traditional Agroforestry to Promote Farmland Biodiversity with Cost-Effective Payments.

Institutional Repository Agroscope

Nishizawa T., Kay S., Schuler J., Klein N., Herzog F., Aurbacher J., Zander P.

Ecological–Economic Modelling of Traditional Agroforestry to Promote Farmland Biodiversity with Cost-Effective Payments.

Sustainability, 14, (9), 2022, 1-21.

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Riassunto:

Orchard meadows, a traditional agroforestry system in Switzerland combining the dual use fruit and fodder production, are declining, even though the farmland managed under agrienvironmental schemes (AES) has been expanding. Despite increasing interest in agroforestry research for developing sustainable agriculture, it is poorly understood how subsidies contribute to the maintenance of trees on agricultural land and the promotion of farmland biodiversity. Therefore, the objective of the present study is to examine the effects of incentive-based AES on both farmers’ decisions regarding trees and biodiversity by developing an ecological–economic assessment model. To explore cost-effective AES, we explicitly consider the heterogeneity of farm types. We apply this integrated model to the farms in Schwarzbubenland, a small hilly region in Northern Switzerland. Results show that the adoption of AES and the compliance costs of participating in AES considerably vary among farm types, and the current AES do not provide farmers with sufficient payments to maintain any type of orchard meadows, despite the ecological benefits of orchard meadows. The integrating modeling developed in this study enables us to better understand the relationship between subsidies and biodiversity through farmers’ decisions on land use and facilitates the design of cost-effective payments for the maintenance of agroforestry.

ISSN Print: 2071-1050
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095615
ID pubblicazione (Codice web): 49385 Inviare via e-mail

Inizio pagina

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)

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Thymol

Ecological–Economic Modelling of Traditional Agroforestry to Promote Farmland Biodiversity with Cost-Effective Payments.