making bait hive more interesting! help please

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milkermel

Field Bee
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Messages
768
Reaction score
20
Location
left of launceston right of bude!
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
6
I have a bait hive at a property that is having major issues with swarms trying to take up residency. They dont want to kill the bees really but they can not stay where they keep trying to go.

I have a bait hive rubbed in lemon balm with old comb in it.

What else can i do to try and encourage occupancy? I have seen swarm lures. Are they any good and how often do they need replacing?
 
I have a bait hive at a property that is having major issues with swarms trying to take up residency. They dont want to kill the bees really but they can not stay where they keep trying to go.
I have a bait hive rubbed in lemon balm with old comb in it.
What else can i do to try and encourage occupancy? I have seen swarm lures. Are they any good and how often do they need replacing?

Can you say where they are trying to go?

In a building, a tree or bush?
 
Make sure the bait hive is big enough. A prime swarm needs a fair amount of room. They may consider a national brood box too small.
 
best advice I can give = close up all the holes they are trying to get into.
 
Make sure the bait hive is big enough. A prime swarm needs a fair amount of room. They may consider a national brood box too small.

A National brood box, at just under 40 litres is more or less the optimum size to be attractive to a swarm according to extensive research by Tom Seeley. Bigger boxes are *less* attractive
 
A National brood box, at just under 40 litres is more or less the optimum size to be attractive to a swarm according to extensive research by Tom Seeley. Bigger boxes are *less* attractive

Possibly so. But anything smaller than a nat BB would be even less attractive.
 
I have just purchased a plastic storage chest £29.99p.
I have fitted it out with rails to carry varying sized frames tackle trays etc. this it to place in my apiary as I'm always forgetting things (like afb spores:))
The carrying handles are slotted thus allowing access by the bees (just rectified) These mods I have done in my garden (no hives here)
I checked the rail fit by sticking a couple of sn1 frames complete with foundation only .
I went for a brew, my wife had spotted dozens of bees popping in and out of the chest via the handles , chased them out and taped over the slots ;).
This chest is 4'x18"x 2' , roughly the size of an omlet beehaus.
Distance from the apiary is a factor in attracting swarms I think?

VM
 
I have a bait hive at a property that is having major issues with swarms trying to take up residency. They dont want to kill the bees really but they can not stay where they keep trying to go.

I have a bait hive rubbed in lemon balm with old comb in it.

What else can i do to try and encourage occupancy? I have seen swarm lures. Are they any good and how often do they need replacing?

Have you thought of a pitcher of iced G&T and a tray containing a pyramid of those foil-wrapped nutty chocolates? It may not always work for the bees - but I'll be round straight away!
 
:gnorsi: behave yourself DD you are talking to a drewling T totaller!! sounds like a nice idea though!

K folks the bees are trying to get into a roof space there was a swarm there last year and now two this year. it was possible to block up the area last year, but have gone somewhere else in the roof space/eves this year. Its about 20ft off the ground. Bait hive is about 10 meters away but up as high as the eves.

The bait box is a national brood box with about 5 frames in it. 3inch entrance. Hive is dark green so as not to look like a pill box on top of their roof!! Oh and it is rubbed in lemon balm.
 
Mel, have you access to a few more old frames of comb to fill out the BB? If not fill it out with frames of foundation - the smell of the wax is often enough to lure bees in. Another tip I was given involves having a queen that is surplus to requirements.... no 'polite' way to put it, but the idea is that you squish her in the BB/onto the wood of the BB so that her pheromones impregnate the wood. Also try a few drops of lemongrass oil in the BB - it is a wee bit more potent than rubbing the wood with lemon balm.
 
In last months BBKA mag they recommended putting an empty super under a frame filled brood box, I used this to house a swarm and it was successful, I haven't used it this method as a bait hive, but I will next year. I think the idea is that you have a nice empty area which is more natural and then the laying foundation above. I later took away the empty super once the bees had settled.
Food for thought.
Steven
 
Another tip I was given involves having a queen that is surplus to requirements.... no 'polite' way to put it, but the idea is that you squish her in the BB/onto the wood of the BB so that her pheromones impregnate the wood.
would this work with a virgin aswell?
 
newportbuzz - I don't know for sure. I recollect reading somewhere - possibly on this forum - that a chap experimented to see how far off land drones would fly to mate with a virgin queen. He tied a virgin queen to the mast of his boat and sailed about. Anecdotally swarms clustered on the mast for several years thereafter. I also read that another beekeeper, possibly Snelgrove, used to dispatch all queens on a particular post in his apiary - swarms form that apiary mainly clustered on that post and gave him a chance to hive them. We are in the process of testing this in a friend's apiary and this summer there have been three swarms cluster on and within 3 meters of a post that has had several queens squished on it - the post is probably lower than would be ideal for a swarm to cluster on but the clematis and fir tree beside it are getting very popular. Normally swarms in that apiary cluster on a single tree about 40 meters from the spot that the aforementioned swarms picked.

Mel, just go for regular lemongrass oil. I picked up a couple of vials on feabay for myself and a friend. I have seen the effect of lemongrass oil upon scout bees; arrived at said friend's apiary and was greeted by bees milling around from a swarm. I had a Nuc in the boot aand so set it out and dribbled a few drops of lemongrass oil on the top bars of a couple of frames. I hadn't put the crown board back on before about 20 scout bees were on the go checking out the Nuc.
 
use Cymbopogon citratus natural extract... not alcohol based

Citronella oil is from same grass family but different species
Cympbopogon winterianus and is an useful insect repellant..............

all to do with the molecular shape and vibration frequency of the atomic structure

Smells the same lemon citron aroma to us but bees do things differently..............
 

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