Review of Lemon Grass Oil With Dead Queen Bee in It to Catch Swarms
It'due south early April. The weather is finally warming upwardly and the crocus and snowdrops are long gone. Depending where you are in the Great britain the OSR may start flowering in the adjacent fortnight or so.
All of which means that colonies should be expanding well and will probably start thinking of swarming in the side by side few weeks.
And then … but like whatever normal flavor really.
Except that the Covid-19 pandemic means that this season is anything but normal.
Keep on keeping on
The clearest guidelines for good apiculture practice during the Covid-xix pandemic are on the National Bee Unit website. Essentially information technology is business every bit usual with the caveats that good hygiene (personal and apiary) and social distancing must be maintained.
Specifically this excludes inspections with more than one person at the hive. Mentoring, at to the lowest degree the really useful "easily-on" mentoring, cannot keep.
A veil is no protection against aerosolised SARS-CoV-2. Don't even retrieve almost risking it.
This ways that at that place volition exist a lot of new beekeepers (those that caused bees this year or late last flavour) inspecting colonies without the benefit of assistance and advice immediately to paw.
Mistakes will be made.
Queen cells volition be missed.
Colonies will swarm 1 .
Queen cells …
It's too early to say whether the electric current restrictions on society are going to be sufficient to reduce coronavirus spread in the community. It's clear that some are nevertheless flouting the rules. More stringent measures may be needed. For beekeepers who keep their bees in out apiaries, the most concerning would exist a very restrictive movement ban. In China and (probably) Italian republic these measures proved to be constructive, although dissentious to beekeeping, so the precedent is established.
Many hives and apiaries are already poorly managed 2 . I would expect that additional coronavirus-related restrictions would only increment the numbers of colonies allowed to "fend for themselves" over the coming flavour.
Which brings me back to swarming.
Swarmtastic
The terminal betoken of communication on the NBU website is specifically about swarms and swarm direction:
You should utilize husbandry techniques to minimise swarming. If y'all have to answer to collect a swarm you demand to ensure that you lot use the guidelines on social distancing when collecting the swarm. If that is non possible, then the swarm then should not be collected. Therefore trying to prevent swarms is the best approach.
Collecting swarms can be difficult enough at the best of times 3 . And cutouts of established colonies are even worse.
In normal years I always adopt to reduce the swarms I might exist called to four past setting out bait hives.
Swarm recently arrived in a bait hive with a planting tray roof …
Let the bees practice the work.
So all yous need do is collect them once they're all neatly tucked abroad in a hive busy drawing comb.
This yr, with who-knows-what happening next, I'll be setting out more than bait hives than usual with the expectation that there may well be additional swarms.
If they're successful I'll have more bees to deal with when the 'old normal' finally returns. If they remain unused so all I've lost is the tiny investment of time made in Apr to fix them out.
Non but whatsoever night box
I've discussed the well-established 'design features' of a good bait hive several times in the past. Fortunately the requirements are easy to see.
- A dark empty void with a book of about xl litres.
- A solid floor.
- A modest entrance of about 10cm2, at the bottom of the void, ideally s facing.
- Something that 'smells' of bees.
- Ideally located well above the ground.
I ignore the last of these. I'd prefer to have an easy-to-reach bait hive to collect rather than struggle at the elevation of a ladder. If I wanted to do some vertically-challenging apiculture I'd get out and collect more than swarms 😉
So, ignoring the concluding indicate, what I've described is the virtually perfect bait hive.
Those paying attention at the back will realise that information technology's also a most perfect description of a single brood National hive.
How convenient 🙂
All of my allurement hives are either single National brood boxes or two stacked National supers. The box does demand a solid flooring and a crownboard and roof. If y'all oasis't got a spare solid floor y'all tin hands build them from Correx v for a few pence.
Bait hive floor
Alternatively, simply tape down a piece of paper-thin or Correx over the mesh of an open mesh floor half-dozen . In some ways this is preferable as information technology's convenient to be able to monitor Varroa levels after a swarm arrives.
Do not exist tempted to use a nuc box as a bait hive. You can hands fit a small swarm into a brood box, but a really big prime swarm volition non fit in a 5 frame nuc box.
Large swarms are better 🙂 vii
More to the point, bees are genetically programmed to search for a void of about xl litres, so many swarms will simply overlook your nuc box for a more spacious nest site.
What'due south in the box?
No, this has nothing to do with Gwyneth Paltrow in Se7en.
How do you make your bait hive even more desirable to the picket bees that search out nest sites? How do you encourage those scouts to advertise the bait hive to their sister scouts? Remember, that information technology's only once the scouts have reached a democratic consensus on the best local nest site that the bivouacked swarm will move in.
The brood box ideally smells of bees. If it has previously held a colony that might be sufficient.
Bait hive …
Notwithstanding, a single erstwhile, nighttime breed frame pushed up against one sidewall not only provides the necessary 'bee aroma', but also gives the incoming queen space to immediately kickoff laying viii .
You can increment the attractiveness past adding a couple of drops of lemongrass oil to the summit bar of this dark brood frame. Lemongrass oil mimics the pheromone produced from the Nasonov gland. At that place's no need toSplash it all over … just a drop or two, replenished every couple of weeks. I usually soak the stop of a cotton bud, and lay information technology forth the frame summit bar.
Lemongrass oil and cotton bud
The old brood framemust non contain stores – you're trying to attract scouts, not robbers.
The incoming swarm will be keen to draw fresh comb for the queen to lay upward with eggs. Whilst you lot tin can just provide some frames and foundation, this has two disadvantages:
- the vertical sheets of foundation finer make the void appear smaller than it really is. The scout bees estimate the volume by walking around the perimeter and taking short internal flights. If they crash into a sheet of foundation during the flight the box will seem smaller than it really is.
- foundation costs coin. Quite significant amounts of money if you lot are setting out half a dozen bait hives. Certain, they'll utilise information technology simply – similar putting a new carpeting into a house you're trying to sell – it's certainly not the deal-clincher.
No foundation for that
Rather than filling the box with nigh £ten worth of premium foundation, a far better idea is to use foundationless frames. Importantly these provide the bees somewhere to draw new rummage whilst non reducing the apparent volume of the brood box.
If you've non used foundationless frames earlier, a bait hive is an ideal fourth dimension to give them a try.
In that location are two things you should be on the scout for. The first is that the bait hive is horizontal nine . Bees draw comb vertically downwards, then if the hive slopes there's a good chance the comb will exist drawn at an angle to the elevation bar.
And that's simply plain irritating … because it's avoidable with a bit of care.
Bamboo foundationless frames
The second thing is that the colony needs checking as it starts to draw comb. Sometimes the bees ignore your helpful lollipop stick 'starter strips' and make up one's mind to go their ain way, filling the box with cross comb.
Beautiful … but equally irritating 🙂
Final touches
For existent convenience I leave my bait hives ready to movement from wherever they're sited to my quarantine apiary (I'll deal with both these points in a 2nd).
Wedge the frames together with a small cake of expanded cell foam so that they cannot shift about when the hive is moved.
Foam block …
And so strap the whole lot up tight so y'all tin can move them hands and quickly when y'all need to.
Allurement hive location and relocation
Swarms tend to move relatively minor distances from the hives they, er, swarmed from. The initial bivouac is commonly just a few metres away. The scout bees survey a wide area, certainly well over a mile in all directions. However, several studies accept shown that bees generally cull to move a few hundred yards or less.
Information technology'south therefore a skillful thought to have a bait hive that sort of distance from your own apiaries.
Or even tucked abroad in the corner of the apiary itself.
I've had bees motility out of one box, bivouac a short distance away so occupy a bait hive on a hive stand up adjacent to the original hive.
It's probably definitely poor course to position a bait hive a brusque distance from someone else's apiary 😉
Merely there'south nothing stopping you putting a bait hive at the lesser of your garden or – whilst maintaining social distancing of course – in the gardens of friends and family.
If y'all want to move a swarm that has occupied a bait hive the usual "less than three feet or more than 3 miles" dominion appliesunless you lot motility them within the first couple of days of arrival. Swarms accept an interesting plasticity of spatial memory (which deserves a post of its own) but will have fully reorientated to the bait hive location inside a few days.
So, if the bait hive is in grandma's garden, only grandma doesn't desire bees permanently, you demand to move them promptly … or motility them over iii miles.
Or move grandma 😉
Lucky dip
Swarms, whether dropped into a skep or attracted to a bait hive, are a bit of a lucky dip. Now and again you become a fantastic prize, but often it's of rather low value.
The good ones are peachy, but even the poor ones tin be used.
But at that place's an boosted benefit … every one that arrives self-propelled in your bait hive is one less reported to the BBKA "swarm line" or that becomes an unwelcome tenant in the eaves of a house 10 .
Equally long every bit they're healthy, even a bad tempered colony headed by a queen with a poor laying pattern, tin can usefully be united to create a stronger colony to exploit belatedly season nectar.
Varroa treatment of a new swarm in a allurement hive…
Butthey must be salubrious.
Swarms volition potentially have a reasonably loftier mite count and will probably need treating within a week of arrival in the allurement hive xi . Dribbled or vaporised oxalic acid/Api-Bioxal would exist my choice; it's effective when the colony has no sealed brood 12 and requires a single treatment.
Simply swarms can bring even more unwelcome payloads thanVarroa mites. If you keep bees in an area where foulbroods are established be extremely careful to confirm that the arriving swarm isn't affected. This requires letting the colony rear breed while isolated in a quarantine apiary.
How do y'all know whether there are issues with foulbroods in your area? Annals your apiary on Beebase and talk to your local bee inspector.
My bait hives exit in the 2nd or tertiary week of Apr … merely I'm on the cool eastward coast of Scotland. When I lived in the Midlands they used to exist deployed in early on April. If you're in the mild southward they should probably be out already 13 .
What are you waiting for 😉 ?
Footnotes
- Although colonies in their get-go year with a new queen may not swarm, some do.
- Non yours plain! Or mine. But a surprising number of hives are non looked later properly, or rarely inspected. BBKA and local association swarm lines accept hundreds of calls every yr well-nigh lost swarms. And bumble bees, solitary bees, wasps etc. …
- Not all are hanging in a football-sized dodder on a waist-high branch with practiced access.
- Or that might bother others.
- The stuff they make For Sale signs from.
- It does need to be taped down … if you don't it will lift and motion when there is a potent breeze. The inside of the bait hive should be dark and welcoming.
- Many small swarms are casts or subsequently-swarms, headed by a virgin queen.
- Assuming information technology'due south a prime swarm with a mated queen.
- At least in the plane perpendicular to the top confined.
- And every one captured is one less that will otherwise probably perish … 75% of swarms do not survive their first winter.
- Remember, they've almost certainly originated from a managed colony where swarm prevention management was unsuccessful. Information technology's therefore quite likely that disease management was also sub-optimal.
- Which, within a week of arrival, information technology won't have.
- I'm pretty sure sentinel bees start scouting even before queen cells are developed.
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Source: https://www.theapiarist.org/time-to-deploy/