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  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #2464  by NigelP
 24 Mar 2019, 05:44
Chrisbarlow wrote:
23 Mar 2019, 20:37


youre being grumpy NP. hahahahahaa. .

Yes :)....
I just happen to know that any swarm I pick in my area (mine own excepted) will be not worth the effort. The bees will form a small aggressive colony that is difficult to requeen to anything else.
If I have the misfortune to catch one in a spare box I try to give them away. PITA IMHO :x
 #2467  by Patrick
 24 Mar 2019, 08:40
Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy..😁!

Around here thankfully our swarms tend to be much easier to manage (I never lose them myself obviously, Ahem!). But the one thing I don’t need is more bees.

I like catching swarms because every one I catch is one I don’t have to advise a householder to destroy once its set up in their chimney. Most give away swarms to beginners around here, tho it is whispered some sell off as nucs, which is a bit naughty with a by definition probably past it queen. Collected casts are probably a better bet in that regard insofar as smaller but new queen maybe?
 #2494  by Fishman
 27 Mar 2019, 15:10
Now is a great time of year for setting up I have used lemon grass oil and it did allow bees to find a box but the key I have come to find is height. Getting a height that just over a single storey building is the key, the kind of height that just starts to make your legs a little less stable. This year I have also used slum gum dried after filtering, the liquid from that as well which I painted the insides with although I should have washed my wax first as this liquid has a bit of honey which makes it very sticky. I also purchased apicharm as well but not sure how effective that will be.
Whether to be believed but dark wax with lemon grass oil is meant to be irrestable, the key with lemon grass oil is that if you sniff the entrance to the bait hive the lemon smell should be very faint. If you can smell it on the approach you have used too much.

My recommendation would always be height as high as you can place it without being in danger. I place in trees using ropes, an ascender and ID with ASAP for the return journey and height seems very attractive aswell as certain trees are favourites with bees.

I haven't always found time up to be massively useful as my bait hives that have been occupied were placed up a couple of weeks before occupation which I have found to very strange as I would have thought the longer up the better. Like you say to become part of the bees roadmap of their local area.
 #2495  by Chrisbarlow
 27 Mar 2019, 22:33
thats a use for slum gum I would never have thought of, but if it works then fair enough.
 #2606  by Fishman
 03 Apr 2019, 19:04
I have high hopes for slum gum as it is like concentrated dynamite and so smell wise the bees should have no problem finding the hive I use this along with what I can only describe as slug gum extract but a liquid. Once this been placed in and dried out the hive smells like a normal hive would and fingers crossed should be very attractive to bees. The weather though has been funny in the NW one moment summer the next moment autumn. We'll see what this does for swarms this year.